By Raja Rajeshwari, CNBC-TV18:

The BIG FIVE of the IT industry have spoken and Satyam and Infosys clearly emerge as sentiment leaders, building confidence from their earnings visibility.

Infosys, the first of the pack, came out with a guidance soothing market nerves. Guidance is an art that Infosys has more or less perfected choosing conservatism at times of weakness. The guidance is the weakest in last four years but the management has weighed risks at hand, reviewed its client spends and guided for 19-21% growth. A weakish first quarter though asks for a 7-8% run rate in the next 3 quarters...

Risk of further weakness in business environment remains. Unlike TCS or even HCL where there has been marked slowdown in specific clients, Infosys is yet to see such deferrals. It has also had a stable quarter in terms of pricing unlike TCS, which saw a pricing fall by over 1.5%. Infosys priority on margins and pricing raises likelihood of it meeting its FY09 EPS guidance 92.3 - 93. Infosys appears safe bet given its track record on guidance vs actual performance and sustenance of margins (especially in FY08).

Satyam too has broken off from Infosys's shadow and guided for a higher growth trajectory. Also surprising is its Q1 guidance of 3.5 -4% revenue growth when all other tech majors are expecting flattish to 2% growth. While its guidance per se is bullish, comments and body language of management remains cautious.

TCS with a shocker set of numbers clearly hit investor sentiment. Is TCS having client specific issues or is first on the block issues, which would probably spread to the industry. The consensus is more towards a one off blip for TCS emanating from client specific issues. While TCS expects one client to start ramping up in Q1, there would be better business from the second client in Q2.

Wipro built on its in line Q4 earnings with 2.8 Q1 guidance but performance volatility and lower organic growth continues to dog the stock…

HCL technologies came up with sixth consecutive quarter of declining $ revenue growth. While the management sounded more circumspect than in previous quarters. Despite weakish comments on op environment, it maintained that it would meet its 35% growth guidance in FY08

More clues would come from Cognizant on May 7^th when it announces its Q1 earnings or from better earnings and future comments from US based BFS/retail client. One needs to see if indeed the optimism that Cognizant had in February did indeed get translated into better Q1 earnings or if the environment has worsened further.