Mumbai: It's official. NSE's micro-cap and small-cap indices have entered a bear market after tumbling over 20% from their peaks in 2024 with the panic deepening in the country's smaller share segments. Typically, when an index falls uninterrupted by over 20% from its highs, it is considered to be in a bear zone. Since September 27, the Nifty Smallcap 250 and Microcap 250 indices have plunged 21.4% and 20.2%, respectively, while the Nifty Midcap Index has slumped 17.7% in the same period.While the 20% decline in both the indices was touched in the past two trading sessions, many small-cap, micro-cap and penny stocks had already dropped between 30% and 80% earlier as the unrelenting foreign selling sparked one of the worst slumps in the country's stock market since March 2020.118342305"The fall in the indices is not giving a clear picture as the majority of the individual stocks have corrected more sharply than the indices," said Aniruddha Sarkar, chief investment officer at Quest Investment Advisors.Over 100 stocks from the Smallcap and Microcap indices have tumbled 10-30% since September 27. The number of stocks that fell 30-50% was 79 and 80 from the Smallcap index and the Microcap index, respectively.