Trading on the São Paulo commodities and futures exchange was uneventful on Monday compared with the violent market swings of recent months.

But all that changed when a trader in one of the open outcry pits attempted to commit suicide on the exchange floor.

As the day drew to a close in Latin America's biggest financial market, Paulo Sérgio Silva, a 36-year-old interest rates futures trader with Itaú, Brazil's biggest bank, pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the chest, causing panic and scattering colleagues.

According to colleagues, Mr Silva suffered from depression for which he had recently taken time off work. He was given first aid at the scene before being rushed to a nearby hospital where he was operated on immediately. He remains in a grave state in an intensive care unit.

Despite the panic caused by Mr Silva's suicide bid, trading was not suspended and the exchange's president addressed the floor 20 minutes later, appealing for calm.

By the end of the day, volume was down around 20 per cent on Friday's level.

Around $20 billion (£13.3 billion) worth of interest rate futures contracts are traded on the exchange floor each day.

Police are investigating how Mr Silva got his pistol past the building's metal detectors. The exchange's operator says Monday's incident is the first of its kind in its history.

Brazil's financial markets have been rocked by the financial crisis.

After years of stellar returns driven by high commodity prices and a new emerging middle class, there has been a massive sell-off since the market peaked in May. Brazil's main stock index, the Bovespa, has since lost around half its value and recent weeks have witnessed jack-knife trading.

Exacerbating market losses has been a sell-off in the real currency. Despite being the best performing of the world's most traded currencies against the dollar in recent years, it has lost a third of its value since touching a near-decade high against the US currency in August.

One trader described recent weeks in São Paulo's financial markets as: "exhausting, just relentless selling since the highs and with no decent bids coming into the market."

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