Brent crude rose 4.95% on Monday to $87.69 a barrel because the Strait of Hormuz is still not open. India buys most of its oil abroad. On Tuesday the Nifty 50 opened at 24,575.10 and never traded above 24,576.85.
The open was the high. From there the index fell to 24,460.90, and by 10:13 in the morning it stood at 24,478.75, a hundred and five points below Monday's close of 24,583.80. India VIX, the number that rises when traders pay more for protection, was at 12.21 against 12.25 on Monday. Oil rose five per cent, the index fell a hundred points, and the fear gauge did not move.
Touching is not the same as staying
Think of a boy jumping at a high shelf. His hand touches it. Then he lands back on the floor. Ask how tall he is and the answer is where he is standing, not where his hand reached.
The market does this every day. The high is where its hand reached. The close is where it was standing when the bell rang at half past three. Two different numbers. Most people are only ever shown one.
Here are three numbers with both counts, over the 107 trading days since 2 March 2026.
| Number | Hand touched it | Stood there at the bell | Reached and slid back | Last day it finished below |
|---|
| 24,777 | 1 time | 0 times | 1 | every one of the 107 days |
| 24,444 | 15 times | 10 times | 5 | 31 July 2026, at 24,383.60 |
| 24,222 | 36 times | 25 times | 11 | 28 July 2026, at 23,985.35 |
The last time the Nifty 50 finished a day above 24,777 was 2 March 2026, at 24,865.70. In the 107 days since, its hand reached that number once, on 5 March, and by the bell it had slipped back to 24,765.90. The nearest any close has come since was 3 August 2026, at 24,774.30. Short by two rupees and seventy paise. Less than a toffee.
Read down the table. The lower the number, the more often the market managed to still be standing above it when the bell rang. Nobody had to tell you that. It is sitting in the counting.
What I have not said
I have not said what happens tomorrow. Nobody knows that, and anybody who says otherwise is guessing in a confident voice. Every figure above already finished happening and you can check each one yourself.
So do this, and it costs nothing. Take one number. Keep two columns beside it in a notebook: touched, and closed. Fill them in yourself for one month. At the end of that month you will know something about that number that no forwarded message will ever tell you, because you are the one who counted it.
Touching is not the same as staying. When somebody hands you a number and only tells you the good half, they are not teaching you. They are selling you something.