Q2: What have you made of the technology numbers we have seen so far and do you think tech as a space could now play for outperformance?

A: I think Infosys numbers are obviously okay and the overall guidance for the year is also quite positive but I think for the other companies perhaps, you need to be a little more circumspect. The numbers that have gone past are all right, I think that is history. The question to ask is that, going forward, will it be as rosy? Whatever we can see anecdotally, it would appear that there is now again an increasing churn at least at the manpower level in many of the large companies and especially at top levels. Headhunters we spoke to were telling us that there are unsolicited increases in CVs of senior level people, almost to the extent of 200% over what they have seen in the recent past. That tends to make you feel a little worried that, there would therefore be that much dissatisfaction and even if not that much churn simply because salary increases are likely to be muted and therefore to that extent that would reflect the fact that there is increasing pressure on the business. So for the next two quarters I would think other than a company like Infosys, which obviously manages its cost and revenues quite well for the most part I would remain somewhat circumspect.

Q3: How do you play banks now, do you think they will sulk on the CRR move or do you think it is in the price and they will move up now that it is out of the way?

A: I think initially at least they should be sulking, there is likely to be an initial downtick, but that said, to a large extent I would have thought that analysts would have factored in the fact that there would be some kind of squeeze because of the CRR. Clearly this quarter is not going to be great for the banks, many of them, especially the private sector ones, would have derivatives positions to worry about. The size of the losses on derivatives is a number that is all over the place but it should be running in to at least a couple of billion dollars. The question really is, how banks report, so on an earnings front it’s a bit stretched, but otherwise valuations have corrected reasonably so that some of them can offer good trading opportunities especially the smaller either old private sector banks or the PSUs both probably have some value now.

Q4: From the whole clutch of mid cap IT anything that stood out in specific for you?

A: It is difficult to comment on. I think each one of them has their own flavour, but I would just put out a bit of caution here, while on one hand it has been a sector which has under performed and therefore should rally on the basis of the result there is. So you may want to stay in reasonably well traded stocks rather than getting into those which can take a knock on the chin quite quickly.

Q5: With everything that has gone into the melting pot already, some monetary policy action earnings that we are still digesting, how do you feel about the market, especially considering the way global markets have been moving?

A: Near-term obviously I would think that, to some extent people got bored of the bearishness and it has to rally a bit, but is there a lot of headroom. I would think that the probability still remains that the headroom is capped fairly strongly. I think inflation is a fear that will continue to haunt the markets for the rest of the year. The earnings will probably have to slowdown especially in the face of policy action. Overall I think, the fact that the prices have risen for many of the industrial commodities would mean that margin pressures will start to manifest themselves as the overall growth story slows down for a while. This year will be a tough year for equities, which means that ,we at best should be in a trading range and you should therefore try and make use of that, at worst, it could get a lot stickier.