Tuesday September 11, 12:56 pm Eastern Time

<font size=5>Latam Markets Plummet After U.S. Attacks</font>

By Carlos A. DeJuana

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - <font color="#FF0000">Latin American financial markets plummeted before coming to a halt on Tuesday after investors bailed out of stocks and currencies following a wave of attacks on the United States</font>.

Stock markets from Mexico to Argentina <font color="#FF0000">were hammered </font>after two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center in New York in what President Bush called an <font color="#FF0000">"apparent terrorist attack."</font> Later, another plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington.

<font color="#FF0000">Stock exchanges in Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Bogota and Caracas suspended trading soon after</font>.

<font color="#FF0000">"Panic, without a doubt, and complete and total uncertainty as to what the economic consequences to this will be,"</font> said Aloisio Lemos, an investment consultant with Lopes Filho & Associados in Rio de Janeiro.

<font color="#FF0000">Brazil's Bovespa (.BVSP) stock index sank 9.18 percent to a 23-month low of 10,827.96 before it was closed for the day</font>. Mexico's IPC (.MXX) index <font color="#FF0000">plunged 5.55 percent </font>before <font color="#FF0000">trading was halted </font>for the day, and in Buenos Aires the Merval (.MERV) index shed 5.17 percent.

"These types of disasters in the United States always trigger a sense of the need for protection," said a market analyst in Sao Paulo."These are emotional reactions to what could happen today."

IÄnvestors had expected the markets to recover on Tuesday from the strong declines of Monday. But markets quickly turned into the red early Tuesday in line with European bourses after the attacks on U.S. soil began.

"The possibility of a rebound today is out of the question," said Marcelo Paccioni at ConsultCapital in Buenos Aires."Stocks and bonds are tracking world markets due to the psychological effect of the situation in the United States."

The region's currencies were also whipped, <font color="#ÄFF0000">with Brazil's real (BRBY) sinking to 2.680 per U.S. dollar, its lowest point since it was introduced in 1994. Mexico's peso (MEX01) tumbled 17.55 centavos to 9.57 per U.S. dollar and the Colombian peso (COP-RR) slid 2 percent to 2,378 to the dollar</font>.

Latin American bond trading, meanwhile, had also ground to a halt as many traders and investors were forced to evacuate their offices in New York.

Seeking safer investments at a time of turbulence, gold, oil and the Swiss franc rose sharply on world markets.

Latin American markets have been battered all year by fallout from <font color="#FF0000">Argentina's financial crisis </font>and the slowing U.S. and global economies. The slump has reduced the amount of crucial inflows of foreign investment they will receive this year.

Quelle: http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/010911/business_markets_latam_dc_1.html[/b]