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As Indonesia Stock Rout Worsens, Trading Halted a Third Time

Indonesia Stock Trading Halted for Third Time as Shares Fall

(Bloomberg) --

Indonesian stocks slumped on Tuesday, triggering a trading halt for the third time in a week.

The Jakarta Composite Index ended the day down 5% to its lowest level since January 2016. A total of 5.4 trillion rupiah ($356 million) in equity value changed hands as of the time of the market suspension at 3:02 p.m. local time, Laksono Widodo, director of trading and membership at the Indonesia Stock Exchange, said in a statement.

As Indonesia Stock Rout Worsens, Trading Halted a Third Time

Indonesia’s benchmark gauge has lost 29% this year as concern over the economic impact of the coronavirus send global shares plunging, with the U.S. market experiencing its worst slump since 1987 Monday. The rupiah also extended its loss into a fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, losing 1.6% to 15,173 against the U.S. dollar, its weakest level since November 2018.

Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has reintroduced a raft of market measures deployed during the global financial crisis. The nation has tightened trading-halt rules, banned short selling and waived the requirement for shareholder approval to buy back shares -- all measures recently imposed to curb market volatility.

Meanwhile global governments and central banks have pledged measures to counter the virus outbreak, which has already sickened more than 174,000 people and killed 7,000. The Philippines halted trading of equity, currency and bond markets until Thursday, while Vietnamese companies are unveiling plans to buy back shares.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tassia Sipahutar in Jakarta at ssipahutar@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Thomas Kutty Abraham at tabraham4@bloomberg.net, Cecile Vannucci, Lianting Tu

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