Lehman collapse: Crisis-struck decade marks exit of 227 stocks from BSE500

Previous periods of market correction for Indian stocks - the Harshad Mehta scam in 1992, the Dot-Com bubble in 2000 and from then till the Lehman debacle - had seen less than 100 exiting the BSE 500

The BSE Sensex’s journey from 13,500 on September 15, 2008, when the Lehman crisis struck world markets, to 36,500 now, is taken as an indicator that the demons of that episode are in the past.

A finer reading of the BSE500 shares — largely reckoned as safe to invest, owing to depth in trade volumes, market capitalisation and trading frequency — paints another picture. From the day the crisis first impacted Indian equities, 227 stocks have seen an exit from the BSE500, or a little over 45 per cent in 10 years.

Previous periods of market correction for Indian stocks