Trading stopped on Russian stock market

Russia’s main stock exchange announced it was to halt trading until Friday after opening with steep losses today.

The MICEX index dropped more than 14% in the first half-hour of trading this morning.

The RTS exchange, whose index is widely considered the benchmark of Russia’s markets, fell more than 11% in the first 30 minutes and suspended trading for one hour.

The exchanges suffered their worst-ever one-day losses on Monday and ended yesterday with minor losses, in a tepid response to President Dmitry Medvedev’s announcement of new measures to improve liquidity in the banking system.