No. 20 · Tuesday 17 Mar 2026 · NSE, data through close
Redesign v5 · One-thesis + Market Health · Real data
StratLab Breadth Index in bottom decile — a rare condition that tends to resolve.
With the index in a bear market recovery, conditions like today saw an average 5-day return of +0.14%, but a worst-case -4.77%.
What happenedIndex gained 0.74%, closing at 23581.15.
The tensionDespite the bounce, StratLab Breadth Index remains at 23.71 (4.5 percentile), signaling very high risk.
Net readNet, the recovery is unconfirmed; historical analogs show a slight positive bias with significant tail risk.
Nifty Close
23,581.15
+0.74%
Market Phase
🔴 Bear Market
session 11 · ↑ recovering
MHI
23.71
4th %ile
Risk
Very High
confidence 35
FII Idx Fut
−240.8K
1.2th %ile
Walls
23.6–23.6K
PE base · CE wall
01 The crowd
01 the crowd
Positioning over the last 20 sessions
FII net index futures · 20 sessions · '000 contracts · endpoint = 17 Mar · source: StratLab participant OI
What this means: Participants pushed the index up 0.74% to 23581.15, seeking a bottom after an 11-day recovery.
02 The turn
02 the turn
What this means: The bear market recovery extended to 11 sessions, but the StratLab Breadth Index has yet to recover, holding at 23.71.
03 The catch
03 the catch
Market health over the last 20 sessions
Market Health Index · 20 sessions · 0–100 · endpoint = 17 Mar · percentiles vs 1,163 sessions
What this means: Market health sits in the bottom decile of its own history — just the 4.5 percentile. Such extremes are rare and usually resolve, not persist.
Phase
🔴 Bear Market
risk Very High
Participation
43.5743
delivery breadth
StratLab Breadth Index
14.4
2th %ile, trailing year
04 Days like today
04 days like today
Analog conditions (55 matches) produced an average 5-day return of +0.14%, with a worst-case decline of -4.77%.
Conditions analog · Phase + Trend + Risk match
n = 55 · tier: exact
Horizon
Avg
Median
Win rate
Worst
Next session
−0.18%
−0.16%
33%
−4.78%
Next 5 sessions
+0.14%
+0.10%
54%
−4.77%
Next 10 sessions
+0.56%
+0.88%
58%
−4.30%
Next 20 sessions
+1.33%
+0.68%
62%
−3.24%
StratLab Breadth Index 23.71; phase run length 11; 55 analog matches.
Bear Market, Recovering, Very High Risk, confidence 35%.
05 Tomorrow's tripwires
Three checks that settle the argument
Confirm
A 5-day return above the analog average of +0.14%.
Watch
A pullback that erases the 0.74% daily gain.
Break
A 5-day loss exceeding the worst-case -4.77%.
The ledger
Where that leaves us
Lines up bullish
StratLab Breadth Index at 4.5 percentile: historically, extremes resolve higher.
55 analog instances averaged +0.14% forward 5-day return.
Market in an 11-day recovery attempt from bear phase.
Lines up bearish
Worst-case analog saw a -4.77% 5-day decline.
Bear market phase; risk remains very high with confidence only 35%.
StratLab Breadth Index 23.71, deeply in bottom decile.
Net read: The bounce is set against a bear market with very high risk. Historical analogs favor a modest +0.14% average return, but with a -4.77% worst-case.
Market health in the bottom decile is a rare condition that usually resolves. But the recovery remains unconfirmed, and risk is elevated.