The Bric stock markets crumbled yesterday as investors in emerging market stocks — including Brazil, Russia, India and China — suffered their worst one-day losses in history.

Exchanges in Russia and Brazil halted trading as their benchmark indices plummeted 18 and 10 per cent respectively. India's Sensex index lost nearly 6per cent as foreign investors fled amid fears that a serious global downturn beckons. China's CSI 300 Index lost more than 5per cent, to extend its losses for the year to 60 per cent. Last night the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which tracks bourses from Chile to Jordan, was down more than 8.2 per cent, leaving it poised for its biggest one-day slide on record.

“Foreign funds are panicking,” Deven Choksey, of KR Choksey, the Bombay brokerage, said. The Indian slump has been driven by the exodus of nearly $10 billion (£5.7billion) of overseas money this year as investors seek sanctuary in US Treasury bonds.

As the markets opened yesterday, sentiment soured in the wake of an early Asian sell-off amid a toxic blend of high borrowing costs and lower commodity prices, traders said. Across the Bric nations, commodity and financial stocks led losers as oil dipped beneath $90 a barrel and fears grew that the global crisis would claim more victims outside the United States.

Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, dropped as much as 22 per cent. Gazprom, the country's biggest company, which holds its gas export monopoly, plummeted by 19per cent.

Russia is seen as particularly vulnerable because investors have borrowed heavily to pump money into the market and now face unanswerable margin calls. Investors gave little heed to the Kremlin's pledge to pump $150 billion into the economy through loans and tax breaks.

“It's a collapse. It's panic, just panic. People are forced to sell or simply want to leave and not think about anything,” Yevgeni Volkov, a trader at MDM Bank in Moscow, said.

One striking measure of the financial pain was the news that Oleg Deripaska, Russia's richest man, had turned over his 20per cent share in Magna, a Canadian car parts company, to the bank that originally financed the purchase.

Brazil's two largest companies, Cia Vale do Rio Doce and Petrobras, both lost more than 10 per cent amid fears that commodities are set to plummet. Sterlite Industries, the Indian copper and zinc producer, was Bombay's biggest faller, down 15.4 per cent.

Smaller markets with large exposures to the price of crude fared no better. Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All-Share Index, which had been closed since September 28, posted its biggest loss in 14 years, tumbling 9.8 per cent.

The falls look to have highlighted the emerging market's dependence on cheap money and buoyant commodities, as well as their ties with Wall Street. Michael Hartnett, global emerging markets strategist for Merrill Lynch, said: “The third-quarter meltdown occurred because commodity prices plunged and risk-aversion jacked up interest rates.”

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