Mar 10, 2020 (LBO) - Trading at Sri Lanka's Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) has been halted temporarily following the S and P index dropping below 5 percent, stockbrokers said.
The S and P index fell 124.28 points or 5.01 percent soon after it opened for trading Tuesday following a long weekend break.
"The market will reopen after 30 minutes at 10.12 am, " Yadavan Jayaram of Bartleet Religare Securities (Pvt) Ltd told Lanka Business Online.
"There is an automatic circuit breaker that comes into effect once the indices drop below 5 percent."
The All Share Price Index is also down 145.56 points or 2.72 percent.
Global markets have been plunging after the implosion of an alliance between OPEC and Russia caused the worst one-day crash in crude prices in nearly 30 years, fueling panic triggered by the escalation of the coronavirus epidemic.
The S&P 500 (SPX) fell about 6 percent while the Dow (INDU) fell as many as 2,046 points.
The Nasdaq Composite (COMP) was also down 5.4 percent.
The New York Stock Exchange halted trading Monday for 15 minutes after stocks plunged more than 7 percent. They retraced some of their losses after the market reopened.