There’s no stopping the Sensex

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Editor's note: The BSE Sensex is on fire. Last Friday, the 30-stock index jumped 1,181 points to close at 61,795 points. It was a record high that came after 13 months. Then, on Tuesday, the index scaled a new peak—61,873—as buoyant bank, auto and energy stocks weighed in. On Wednesday, the Sensex crossed the 62,000 mark for the first time ever. This is very different to the scenario just five months ago, when the Sensex was in free fall. It hit 51,360 on 17 June, a 16% drop from its peak in January as the tech stock contagion in the US sparked a sell-off in Indian IT stocks. The Sensex, at that point, was mirroring the Nasdaq index, the barometer of technology stocks in the US, which fell by a third during the same period. As rising inflation and the expectation of lower technology spending by American companies spooked the prospects of firms like Microsoft and Google, Indian IT firms felt the heat too. To the extent that even the sharp fall of the rupee against the dollar did little to help …