The Sensex closed up 373 points at 78,954, clean and orderly, and the settlement everyone feared would break under the new single closing auction held just fine. But in the last ninety seconds of the day the price on your terminal ran to a level the market never actually traded, and then it came back. That was the auction talking, and it is the whole story of episode 98.

The Nifty told the same lie the other way. It closed at 24,636, up eleven points, a 73 point range, the tightest day of the week, fifteen stocks up and thirty four down, the volatility gauge at 12. Dead on the surface, coiled underneath. Reliance was up 3.4 percent, State Bank up 3, Bharat Electronics up 2.5, ICICI up 2.3, while TCS fell 2 percent, Infosys slipped, autos and metals lost about a percent each. The index is a weighted average, the winners and losers were the s ...