New Delhi, May 12 -- Dear reader,

Good morning! Last week, I wrote that bulls would attempt to corner bears. But this was subject to the caveat-"attempts by bulls to trounce bears will be subject to no new surprise negative trigger emerging to play party pooper." The surprise element was the Indian armed forces carrying out retaliatory strikes on Pakistan in reply to the Pahalgam terror attacks. As the rhetoric and DIP-ping (disinformation protocol in military parlance) by Pakistani media and social media escalated, traders displayed caution.

This is a routine phenomenon, and veteran market players are unlikely to be fazed by it. Do note how the weekly losses are primarily because of the fall on Friday alone. Markets were calm on the pr...