The Indian bourses reeled under intense selling pressure, triggered by the bleeding US, Asian and European indices and spiralling global oil prices,with all the global bourses mirroring the trigger down effect.
Felled by steep falls
Thus, within a span of week's time, BSE’s 30-scrip Sensex suffered yet another major crash, felled by the steep falls in the global bourses.
The BSE Sensex on Wednesday ended down 3.96 per cent, while the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) lost 183 points to 4, 345.85 points, recording a decline of 4.04 per cent. The Sensex had earlier recorded its biggest ever loss of 826.38 points on May 18, 2006 followed by second largest fall of 616.73 points on April 2, 2007. According to market operators “a global meltdown led to blood-bath on local bourses. After opening weak, influenced by bearish US markets, the market continued its downward spiral on intense selling pressure. All sectoral indices too tumbled, with shares  from real-estate pack suffering the most.’’
Discounting several positive factors including hints of a cut in taxes and area-based exemptions for select sectors, investors resorted to panic sales across the board triggered by fears of margin calls, they pointed out. During intra-day transactions, the Sensex touched the day’s low of 14,910.52 and high of 15,344.02. Likewise, Nifty had plunged to day’s low of 4339.75 and risen to a high of 4532.90.
Interestingly, in recent times most bull-run rally revolved around five scrips in the Sensex.  However, the day’s market meltdown affected all 30 stocks in the BSE’s benchmark index.  Reliance Industries, shed 94.3 points or 5 per cent to settle at Rs 1,798. ICICI Bank Ltd scrips fell 35.7 points or 3.9 per cent to end at Rs 891.35. The two stocks account for about fifth of Sensex’s weightage. However, the market mayhem at country’s premier bourse was not specific to benchmark index alone, the BSE Realty index had hit a high of 7,748.29 and low of 7,306.98 so far during the day. It had touched an all-time high of 8,455.45 on July 24, 2007. All 11 stocks in BSE Realty index were trading in the red. The BSE Realty index has declined 3.42 per cent over last one month to July 31, 2007 compared to Sensex’s return of 0.94 per cent.
Market breadth
The market breadth was extremely negative with 2,109 shares showing sharp to moderate losses against 501 others closing in positive territory. The trading volume rose sharply to Rs 6,655.85 crore from Rs 5,298.38 crore on Monday.
Foreign investors sold a net $336.6 million in equities on July 27 and July 30, according to latest figures from Securities & Exchange Board of India. They had been net buyers every day in July, except on three occasions.