At nine in the morning the screen was red and half the market reached for the exit. By half past three it was green, and Nifty had walked all the way back to 23483.55, up 0.43 percent, right onto 23500. The gap down at the open, 23229, turned out to be the low of the entire day. Every dip after that got bought.

One sector did all the lifting. IT, and only IT. TCS closed up 6.53 percent, Infy up 5.66, HCL Tech up 4.08, on the back of another record night for the Nasdaq. Underneath the green it was thin. NTPC fell 2.89 percent and Axis Bank fell 1.88. The foreign desks sold 7824 crore in the cash market while the homes bought 9058 and absorbed it, the same pattern that has held for weeks.

This episode opens with the scorecard from yesterday. Five calls, four landed. 23145 held with a low of 23229. 23600 stayed a ceiling with a high of 2 ...