For an entire week this market has held its breath for one number. A little after ten this morning, the Reserve Bank reads it out, and a week of coiled positioning gets released. Every trade on the screen right now is a bet on what the bank says. This episode is the data-driven plan into the decision, before the print, not after.

First, yesterday's scorecard. Five calls on expiry day, three landed clean. The Sensex pinned between 74000 and 75000 and closed at 74360, dead inside the range. The Nifty held 23300, got capped under 23500, and closed at 23416 with a high of 23465 — never touched the wall. And the call that the foreign short book would keep the index capped held too; the market went nowhere, up five hundredths of a percent. The miss was volatility: I said stay long the strangle into today, but expiry crushed the volatility gauge t ...