MTNL recovers: MTNL recovered today from Rs 154 to close at Rs 163 after the news of the cancellation of buyback. It is a very good buy at this price, said a fund manager. "MTNL had earmarked Rs 530 crore for buy-back and with this proposal cancelled the company will use this money to fund expansions, modernise and improve services. Purchases galore: Market grapevine is ripe with rumours that Klienwort Benson Fund has placed an order to buy around 1 crore sharesof Reliance, to be acquired gradually, but this could not be confirmed. According to the rumour mill, Morgan Stanley made its entry again into Tata Tea and bought around 5 lakh shares.

The Oppenheimer Fund is rumoured to have bought 1 lakh PSI Data Systems and so is the FII, Battery March is rumoured to be acquiring this stock. Jardine Fleming is rumoured to have placed a buy order of 25 lakh IPCL. Godfrey Philips, great stock: The stock we had earlier written about has been on the upper circuit for the past two days. According to fund managers, at the market price of Rs 745 and market capitalisation of Rs 800 crore the stock compares poorly with ITC, which has a market capitalisation of around Rs 20,000 crore and market price of Rs 813, the stock is a value pick. "With a strong distribuiton network and great brands like Red and White and Cavenders, the stock is great," said a fund manager.

Textile gainers: Rumours of a `swadeshi' budget and special incentives to the textile industry provided a freshlease of life to the underperformers of the market. Stocks like Arvind Mills and Century Textiles were locked at the day's highest price on the local bourses. While Arvind Mills was locked at Rs 42.40, Century Textiles was locked at Rs 33.05.

Auction action: `Its time to bridge the shortfalls,' said a leading broker of BSE in the light of the political uncertainties. Speculator favourites like Digital Equipment, Thomas Cook, Tata Tea, Tata Vishiti, Silverline and Ranbaxy Labs registered huge auction quantities on the NSE today. According to brokers the recovery in the prices of these stocks during the last phase of the trading session was due to the huge auction offers to be settled later in the evening. According to brokers, Thomas Cook today faced an auction offer of over 14,000 shares.