New Delhi, April 18 -- US president Donald Trump abruptly suspended reciprocal levies on most countries last week, igniting a jubilant rally across world markets. But not in India, where the local markets stayed closed on 10 April for a public holiday. Social media lit up with memes calling to open the market, which had seen deep losses over the previous six days.

And to top it, the current week has just three trading days, only the 22nd such instance since 2011.

What do truncated trading weeks mean for market behaviour? A Mint analysis of data since 2011 showed that the Sensex gained in 60% of the 22 heavily truncated weeks (those with only three trading days). However, in most such cases, it lost these gains the following week. Overal...