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| - The Sao Paulo stock exchange plunged Monday, triggering a suspension of trading for the fifth time in a week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to roil markets in Brazil and worldwide. The market's Ibovespa index plummeted more than 12 percent at opening, then stabilized at a loss of around 10 percent after a half-hour closure. Earlier, it sank below the barrier of 72,000 points for the first time since June 2018. The automatic circuit breakers that halt trading in case of a sudden plunge in Latin America's biggest stock market have been getting a regular workout as the pandemic batters the Brazilian economy, which is closely tied to China's and highly sensitive to global market swings. The latest rout in Sao Paulo followed the trend set in Asia and Europe, where traders' panic over the pandemic's economic impact only increased after the US Federal Reserve decided to slash interest rates to almost zero in a bid to boost growth. Domestic concerns were also in play in Brazil, where analysts polled by the central bank lowered their 2020 economic growth forecast to 1.68 percent, down from 2.23 percent four weeks ago. The biggest losers included airline Azul, which was down more than 21 percent, and travel company CVC, which was down more than 20 percent. The Brazilian real, meanwhile, sank more than 2.5 percent, to 4.95 to the dollar. bur-jhb/jm
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