SENSEX was first introduced on January 1, 1986, with a base value of 100. In its early years, the index witnessed modest movements. The early 1990's marked a turning point for the Indian economy with the initiation of economic liberalization and market reforms. The SENSEX started gaining prominence. The index crossed the 1000-point mark for the first time on July 25, 1990.
After economic liberalization in India in 1991, under the leadership of the Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, by the then Finance Minister and former Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh. The stock market saw a number of cycles of booms and busts, some related to scams such as those engineered by players such as Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh, some due to global events and a few due to circular trading, rigging of prices and the irrational exuberance of investors leading to bubbles that finally burst. The index surpassed the 2000-point mark for the first time in 1992.
On 29 February 1992, the SENSEX surged past the 3000 mark in the wake of the market-friendly budget announced by Manmohan Singh.
On 28 April 1992, the BSE experienced a fall of 12.77% – due to the Harshad Mehta Scam.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) was established in 1992, and it launched the Nifty 50 index in 1996.
On 11 October 1999, the SENSEX crossed the 5000 mark, as the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition won the majority in the 13th Lok Sabha election.
The IT boom in the late 1990's and early 2000's pushed the index to cross the 6000 mark in 2000.
The Sensex briefly touched 6026.59 points in 2004. In May 2004, the Sensex experienced a significant drop of 15.52% following the unexpected UPA election victory. The monthly average level of the Sensex in May 2004 was 5204.65. It fell to a low of 4823.87 in June 2004 but recovered to 5144.17 in August 2004.
On 20 June 2005, the news of the settlement between the Ambani Brother's boosted investor sentiments and the scrips of Reliance Industries Limited, Reliance Energy, Reliance Capital and IPCL made huge gains. This helped the SENSEX crossed 7000 points for the first time.
On 8 September 2005, the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share index – the SENSEX – crossed the 8000 level following brisk buying by foreign and domestic funds in early trading.
The SENSEX on 28 November 2005 crossed the 9000 and touched a peak points during mid-session at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the back of frantic buying spree by foreign institutional investors and well supported by local operators as well as retail investors.
On 2 April, 2007, The Sensex fell by 617 points to 12,455 though during the course of the day, it fell further. As per the analysts at Rediff, "The Sensex opened with a huge negative gap of 260 points at 12,812 following the Reserve Bank of India decision to hike the cash reserve ratio and repo rate. Unabated selling, mainly in auto and banking stocks, saw the index drift to lower levels as the day progressed. The index tumbled to a low of 12,426 before finally settling with a nifty loss of 617 points (4.7%) at 12,455".
On 21 Jan 2008, the BSE fell by 1,408 points to 17,605 leading to one of the largest erosion's in investor wealth. The BSE stopped trading for a while at 2:30 pm due to a technical snag although its circuit filter allows swings of up to 15% before stopping trading for an hour. Referred to in the media as "Black Monday", the fall was blamed by analysts at HSBC mutual fund and JP Morgan on a large variety of reasons including change in the global investment climate, fears of United States economy going into a recession, FII's and foreign hedge funds selling in order to reallocate their funds from risky emerging markets to stable developed markets, a cut in US interest rates, volatility in commodities markets, a combination of global and local factors (other emerging markets were down nearly 20% so India is playing catch-up), huge build-ups in derivatives positions leading to margin calls and that many IPOs had sucked out liquidity from the primary market into the secondary market. HSBC mutual funds analysts predicted further falls in the stock market, and the analysts at JP Morgan were of the opinion that market would fall a further 10–15%.
The SENSEX crossed record 25000 level for the first time, on 16 May 2014, due to winning of the BJP led NDA Government by a staggering record marginal difference of all times.
On 4 March 2015, The Sensex breaches 30000 mark following steps taken by the Reserve Bank of India in cutting the repo rates.
On 24 August 2015, the BSE Sensex crashed by 1,624 points. The reason given for this crash was given as a ripple effect due to fears over a slowdown in China, as the Yuan had been devalued two weeks ago leading to a fall in the currency rates of other currencies and the rapid selling of stocks in China and India. The Shanghai stock exchange too fell by 8.5%. A variety of other reasons too were given for this fall by analysts including disappointing earnings in the first quarter for many Indian companies, somber commentaries by their management leading to doubts regarding their recovery and a below average monsoon for that year.
On 9 November 2016, crashed by 1689 points, believed by analysts to be due to the crackdown on Black Money by the Indian government, resulting in frantic selling. The Sensex nosedived by 6% to 26,902 and the Nifty dropped by 541 points to 8002. These were said to be due to the DEMONETIZATION drive by the Modi Government. The Hindu was of the opinion that the weakening rupee and the US presidential election too had some bearing on the behavior of investors.
On 2nd and 5th February 2018, sparked by the comments of the Finance minister's proposal in the budget speech to introduce a 10% long term capitalgains tax (LTCG) on equity shares sold after 12 months. The BSE Sensex fell by 600 points in two days,
On 23 May 2019, The SENSEX crossed 40000 at 10:45 AM for the first time. (2019 Loksabha Election results were getting published).
On 9 March 2020, Sensex tumbled down by 1941.67 points amid the fears of (COVID-19) Corona Virus Pandemic and Yes Bank crisis.
