CNBC-TV18’s Executive Editor, Udayan Mukherjee - It’s a tough call for people regarding Infosys, the general mood in IT is positive right now. The way we are going into Infosys, it’s almost like people say give me a reason to go out and buy your stock. The market is positioned like that, we are not at Rs 1200 for Infosys, we are at Rs 1400-Rs 1450 for Infosys right now, stock has moved on quite a bit, and with the bounce, it’s just eased of a bit over the last couple of days.

Traders taking profits and saying, I want to watch numbers before I move ahead on Infosys. But more strong than weak going into the numbers, that tells you how psychologically the market is positioned and not with so much pessimism, as a little bit of hope that something good will come out. Having seen Infosys for so many years, my guess is that they will be ultra conservative because there is some fog on the wind screen, it’s not as stable thumping bullish as a couple of years, so it’s a very conservative company, I doubt if they will come out and give you something a ra-ra kind of guidance in this kind of an environment.

My own guess is, if they do around Rs 81, for the end of this year, which is FY08, then on top of that, they might guide for Rs 91 or Rs 92 earnings per share. Rs 91 would be about 12% growth for next year, Rs 92 would be about 13.5%, that’s about it because Infosys is probably going to deliver something like 17% rupee EPS growth for FY08. Conditions are difficult for next year, the base is higher, they don’t want to take a chance, they might guide 13.5%- 14% which is Rs 92 per share, and that should be good enough. But will Rs 91-Rs 92 sent the stock into raptures and the sector into a huge upward re-rating? I doubt it very much. I think Rs 91 is sort of a mid-line, anything sub Rs 91, suppose Rs 90 for example, Infosys is essentially saying its profits will grow 10% next year. I don’t think that’s good enough, I heard JP Morgan said yesterday that Rs 90 is fine but Rs 90 is not the stuff which will make the markets happy, for a company which at Rs 90 or Rs 91 trades at 16 times next  year’s earnings, 10% guided growth is not going to be good enough.

I think Infosys needs to do Rs 92 plus to make the market even remotely happy, and even if it does Rs 91 or Rs 92, trading at 16 times, I would be surprised if the stocks made a big dash to Rs 1800 or anything like that. You are talking about a 12%-13% of guided growth, 16 PE, may go up one notch on the PE, may go up to Rs 1550 or Rs 1600 but I suspect it won’t spark off a big rally. So who knows, maybe we are expecting some big thing. At the end of Tuesday, we all will be saying, Infosys moved Rs 70 today, it’s pretty much a flat kind of a guidance.