Riga - There was a sting in the tail of this week's trading on the small Baltic stock exchanges Friday when prices dropped sharply in response to big falls on the world's main exchanges.

All three Baltic stock exchanges were down significantly at the close of trading, crushing hopes that the worst of the financial downturn might be over in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The NASDAQ OMX Tallinn exchange was down 5.89 per cent, Vilnius suffered most, down 6.56 per cent, and Riga dipped 3.44 per cent.

The Baltic Benchmark Index (BBI) which includes data from all three exchanges, closed down 6.03 per cent, at 281.14. (dpa)