MOSCOW - Russia's two main stock exchanges opened, then closed, then opened again Friday, the most extreme example of the volatility that is hitting the world's financial markets.

The MICEX and RTS had been closed since Wednesday after stocks plummeted. Within an hour of the reopening, prices were up so steeply that authorities stopped trading again, in line with exchange rules.

Trading restarted for a second time an hour after that, and stocks continued to climb.

MICEX, where most share trading takes place, was up 23.1 percent on the day, while the RTS rose 15.5 percent.

Both indexes were closed on Wednesday after the MICEX suffered one-day losses on a scale not seen since Russia's 1998 financial collapse. It plunged 25 percent in just 2 1/2 days on the back of tumbling oil prices and Wall Street turmoil, and was down more than 55 percent since its May peak.

The stock market recovery comes after the government approved a raft of measures this week to prop up financial markets and pump liquidity into the troubled banking sector.

Among those measures, it said it would use $9.8 billion from the budget to buy shares, and the same amount again if stocks remain undervalued.

It has also announced measures in the past two days amounting to roughly $44 billion in support to the country's banking system, most of which will be channeled to the three largest banks in an effort to get liquidity filtering through to smaller banks.

A senior government official reiterated the government's message Friday, saying the state would "act swiftly" to head off any serious problems in the banking sector.

"The state will intervene if a situation emerges which would threaten the stability of the banking system," presidential economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said in a televised statement. "Any systemic problems will be resolved, and there will be no shocks."

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Associated Press Writer Nataliya Vassilyeva contributed to this report.

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