Market Close: Peaceful FNO expiry..

FNO expiry had nothing much to worry but a bit of volatility with all eyes on SEBI's meet. Flat start but gained momentum to trade in green till the end. Buying was seen in index heavy weights like Tata Steel, Hindalco, REL, ICICI Bank and SBI which kept the indices upwards. Tisco and Sail seem to be drawing strength everyday on the back of expectations of large mine allocations. Metal sector trade up accompanied by Banking and Auto. FMCG stocks trade bit weak. European indices are trading in green.

Sensex ended up by 257 points at 18,770 levels. Supporting the indices were gains in Tata Steel (+7.60%), ICICI Bank (+3.40%), Bharti Airtel (+2.7%), HDFC Bank (+2.20%) and Grasim (+2.04%). Restricting the gains were the losses in Cipla (-5.11%), Dr. Reddy (-2.33%), ITC (-1.06%), ACC (-0.93%) and Rel Energy (-0.46%).

Avaya Global reported its good First Quarter Results Top line grew by 26% to Rs 152 Cr on y-o-y basis. Bottom line was Rs 9.8 Cr against loss made last year. Avaya Global's Australian subsidiary started contributing Revenue. This will further add to bottom line. Avaya a market leader in Communication is well placed to capture this segment as it is a clear leader by far. With expertise in IP Telephony, Unified Communication and lots more, Avaya Global is well placed to take the advantage. The risk appears to be from slower growth in the call centre's who are facing tougher times because of the appreciating Rupee. However, the growth may slow but more than that the companies would rely on technology even more to have higher productivity and that would be beneficial for Avaya. At current price of Rs.280 the stock trades 11 times its annualized EPS. We remain positive on this with a long term perspective.

Navneet Publications reported 77 % jump in its net profit at Rs 8.4 Crs for the second quarter ended September 2007 from Rs 4.74 Crs for the same quarter, last year. The company's Net sales rose by 35% to Rs 82 Crs from Rs 60 Cr a year ago. The company also mentioed that the wind power generating units have been operational since September 2007. Navneet Publications has two major divisions, book publishing division and paper stationery division. The book publishing division publishes educational books for Maharashtra & Gujarat viz children and general books. The paper stationery division caters to the domestic as well as international markets. International market contributed 6 Cr out of the 20 Crs made in the stationery segment. The company recently ventured into e-learning, animated online books & software as it sees good growth in this segment. The e-learning has already been launched in Gujarat schools and as of now has 40 schools in its kitty and expects same service in Maharashtra's schools by March next year. Retail e-learning products would be also made available by March next year. Keep looking at this space as we will update you..

Technically speaking : Sensex is faces a resistance at 18850 above which we could see good rally and new high's and down side could see 18300 levels.