At 9:57 a.m. yesterday in São Paulo, the screens stopped moving.
The Ibovespa had dropped 10% within minutes of the opening bell. That tripped the exchange's circuit breaker and froze trading for 30 minutes.
It was the first time Brazil's market had hit that switch since the pandemic panic of 2020.
When trading resumed, the selling kept coming. By the close, Brazil's benchmark index had lost 13.88%, finishing at 176,608.23. More than 28,000 points vanished in a single session.
One of Brazil's leading financial outlets called it a monumental disaster. That's no exaggeration. Monday now sits beside the worst days of the March 2020 crash in the index's record book.
The trigger was a vote count.
First, a Correction