And now, take Infosys Technolgies. On January 21, when the market peaked, it posted a 63 per cent jump. Thereafter, it has not been able to advance much further. The gain to date is a further ten per cent to 73 per cent. NIIT came up with a 40 per cent gain and has now advanced to 56 per cent. Pentafour peaked at 32 per centgain and is now at 23 per cent. Its proximate rise from the Rs 480-level in December is the reason for the more moderate rise now.

HLL peaked to 21 per cent and now is subdued with a 15 per cent gain. Nestle has been choppy with a gain of just around 5 per cent. On the other hand, Brittania has done better than even HLL posting a 30 per cent gain. Cadbury is more modest at 20 per cent. And if you are looking for negatives, you have Colgate which lost 25 per cent of its market value at the peak and is now down 20 per cent.

If you take the food industry as a whole the gain is around 16 per cent. The computer software industry has a figure of 52 per cent gain. So clearly the market performance has been related to the ability of the particular industry group. The food industry has done quite creditably. The software industry has no problem swinging up, but certainly has its moods and favourites. The petroleum and commodity stocks have their own story to tell.

So there was no bull wave as a whole. It wasa case of punters chosing their domain, set up a background, unleash an operation and make money. All news comes in handy. If Pentafour Software bags a new software contract, use it to drive the scrip up to Rs 968. Once the operator is out discard it as a banana peel! The naive investor who believed all the hype about Pentafour being highly undervalued would be left bewildered.

The truth lies somewhere in between. Yes Pentafour is into a steady and growing multimedia business. It may not be the equivalent of high SAP technology. But what the investor should look for is volume of assured business, good and continued clients and margins. Pentafour has all these. Yet it does not enjoy the same flavour of Infosys, for obvious reasons. Investor trust is something you build with a long track record and good professional and corporate practices.

But for one who is hunting for value, Pentafour is still good value. And in my view surely has much room on the upside. It does qualify a bettering of itsprice earning multiple.

But never for a moment, forget that operators who have their own favourites and their own game plans. The normal investor would have been deeply puzzled by Bhel shooting up by Rs.10 on good news only to go down below baseline next day. Operators have loyalty only to the profits of the day and the moment. Nor do they care too much about intrinsic valuation. Digital Equipment is a case in point. The scrip has been moving non-stop, triggering the 8 per cent limit every trading day for the last 6-7 days. It is reportedly getting out of hardware and getting into software. Here is speculation in all its nakedness, akin to what happened in BPL last year. It is not as if the market does not have bench-marks to judge what a software scrip is worth. It's quite easy for anyone to make a comparison for himself how Digital Equipment stands in terms of its price earning ratio, its turnover, its equity etc.,

Sure, a strong foreign connection is news you can exploit and internet isquite a fancy. But has not Satyam got into internet. Or for that matter, is Internet business out of reach for other strong players in India. But who cares, the hype and hoopla is handy for the operators, who are behind the scrip.

And why not compare it to what is happening to internet stocks in the US market. The difference is the American internet stocks have been in internet business for more than two years now. And even here, Bill Gates and Alan Greenspan has sounded a caution in going overboard. Yet going overboard is what you see in Digital Equipment. And contrast it with going down on Bhel!

You must excercise much caution against the serious risks on such speculative play. For when reaction sets in, the late entrant would suffer, while the master mind would have collected his pile and left the scene. Atlas Capco is another example. The company's prospects is intricately linked to the improvement in infrastructure industry. In the recent past the company's past has been boosted by aone time bulk order from oil drilling majors. And here you have the stock racing ahead of performance, simply because someone decides to play it up.

It is one thing to pick up a scrip on a long term consideration and quite another to go after it at any price, throwing all norms of evaluation. Larsen is a clear-cut example of a rise which is slow and steady. In fact it is perfect example of how a scrip would respond to a definite change in outlook for its future.

And compare Atlas Capco with Larsen & Toubro and you will learn your lesson. Right now, there is apparently a complete departure from normal stock evalutaion practices. Investors usually forecast into the next year or two and assign a price earning multiple. Then you work backwards putting in your required return to arrive at the price reasonable to be paid today. The badla rates are indeed based on this principle, in addition to the availability of money.

This method appears to have been abandoned in pharma scrips. Surely companyprofits cannot be growing in the same proportion as their stock prices. And if it is a case of re-rating of price earning multiple, consider this.

Soon you will have a re-rating for the market as a whole, following the economic survey and the budget. These stocks could then re-rate themselves downwards in consonance then. Ask yourself then, are the risks that you take on these scrips consonant with the rewards. Actually, in my view there is not much room above and there could be sizeable and hurtful fall below! High risks are taken for high returns. And pharma scrips at current prices, unless for very long term, do not pass this test. important to try very hard to maintain your balance. As Warren Buffet would have said, pass up a thousand opportunites, have oceans of patience for the price to get down to the right level and then only stoop to pick it. Remember this. It is too easy to lose your balance and lose your shirt as well. Caution, scepticism and double checking on the riskreturn equation should be your touch stone in choppy markets. What else could have one expected. The position of the investor is most miserable. It is between the devil and deep sea.

The week that went by witnessed one of the choppiest times at the bourses. Scrips kept bouncing up and down, mostly on news and speculative drives. I had pointed out last week that people are kicking themselves into believing that we are in the midst of the pre-budget boom. It is indeed very difficult for anyone to maintain one's sense of balnce at such turbulent times.

That is because the choices are very difficult. It is almost impossible not to be drawn into the vortex. Money can be made in stock markets only if you are prepared to play the game. And this is a game where the market chooses the time, when the casino will get in full swing. So if the budget is round the corner, it is mandatory almost to have a bull run. Or so would it appear. Now you do not have too many choices, here. If you have been maintaining ascore card on various parameters that decide the destiny of the stock markets on a long term basis, you can find yourself in a serious fix.