Robert Amsterdam

The Dealbook blog of the New York Times asks the question:

At what point is a stock market no longer a functioning stock market?

Every day this week, regulators have had to halt trading on Russia’s main bourses, the world’s hardest-hit stock markets during the current crisis. (...)

“It’s a little embarrassing for Russia,” Rory MacFarquhar, an economist at Goldman Sachs’s office here, told The Times of the daily market closures.

Though the closures sow growing doubt among investors, the larger problem is the leveraging, which has revealed a fundamental and central flaw in the Russian market. (...)

“Russia does have its own problem now,” Mr. MacFarquhar told The Times.