May has turned out to be the cruellest month for the Indian stock market in the last one decade.
The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex reported its sharpest-ever drop of 819.70 points in May. This is the biggest ever fall of the Sensex in a month over the last 12 years.
The National Stock Exchange index, the S&P CNX Nifty, dropped 287.35 points this month. Again, this is the sharpest fall since the inception of the NSE.
In May in 1992, 12 years ago, the Sensex fell by 881.64 points and Nifty by 279.39 points. That was in the aftermath of the Harshad Mehta scam.
This month, the Sensex declined by 14.49 per cent -- from 5655.09 on April 30 to 4835.39 on May 28. The Nifty dropped by 16 per cent, from 1796.10 to 1508.75. The month is not yet over. Monday is the last trading day of the month. May 17 was the most volatile day of the month.
On that day, the Sensex dropped 842.37 points in intra-day trading while the Nifty dropped by 290.20 points. During the day, the market twice hit the lower circuit breaker and halted for trading.
Monthwise, the big falls were reported in March 2001 (the Sensex dropped 642.66 points), March 1994 (507.23 points), July 2000 (468.91 points), October 1992 (461.08 points) and March 2000 (445.70 points).
The Sensex fell by more than 400 points in nine months -- it dropped by between 300 and 400 points in 11 months and by between 200 and 300 points in 10 months.
Out of 30 Sensex stocks, the prices of only two -- Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Zee Telefilms -- gained in May. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Reliance Energy declined by more than 30 per cent. HPCL dropped by 31.91 per cent from Rs 460.45 on April 30 to Rs 313.50 on May 28. Reliance Energy's price declined by 31.33 per cent from Rs 724.80 to Rs 497.75 during the same period.
The prices of Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd, ICICI Bank, Maruti Udyog, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, Oil and Natural Gas Corptoration, Tata Power and SBI declined more than 20 per cent this month.
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