Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. But when US sanctions exempted Russian oil and gas, crude crashed from $105 to $95 — and India rallied on short covering, even as Dow futures fell hard. Then the shock deepened: SWIFT sanctions, a halving ruble, and by 8 March the Nifty touched its war low of 15,671, with Reliance at 2,180. It rallied back to 18,200, then slid again to ~15,700 by mid-May.

A ~2,000-point two-way swing in two months. Earlier that same month the index had slid 1,200 points in 5–6 sessions, falling 200–250 points a day. The takeaway became the era's refrain: the fear of war moves markets more than war itself.

LIC — India's largest-ever IPO — listed at a 60–70 rupee discount to its issue price, versus the modest 25–30 rupee discount the grey market had expected. The irony PR Sundar flagged: Indians always pay a premium to LIC for their policies; the LIC share itself commanded none.

The backstory added poetry. The LIC that rescued the ONGC FPO in 2004 and marked the 2013 bottom now needed saving itself. There was no one to play LIC for LIC.

Mid-session news hit: Switzerland hiked rates for the first time in 15 years. If even the most conservative central bank was tightening, panic followed — the Nifty fell 500+ points intraday, Bank Nifty 1,000+, metals down 5%+, a one-way fall with no recovery, breaking the 52-week low of 15,659.

The strangest crash trigger of 2022 — a Swiss rate hike collapsing Dalal Street in a single session.

The government imposed export taxes on petrol, diesel and ATF overnight, with no warning. Reliance — a roughly 12–13% index weight — fell about 8% intraday, dragging the Nifty down around 150 points on a closing basis and ~300 total. Weeks later, export duties on metals sent the whole sector down 10–15% in a day, with JSW Steel dropping from 600 to 547.

The cleanest concentration-risk lesson in the dataset: one policy order plus one heavyweight stock equals an index-level crash.

US CPI hit 9.1% — a 41-year high — and the Fed hiked aggressively. FIIs sold ₹40,000–50,000 crore every month for six to seven months, roughly ₹3 lakh crore over ten, so severe that an RBI deputy governor published a paper warning FII selling could become a black swan for India.

The Nifty fell from 18,000+ to 15,200, around -15–16% — but did not collapse, because retail SIPs of ~₹17,000–18,000 crore a month absorbed the selling. A -15% bear grind that should have been -40% became the first great proof of the retail wall.