The markets are moving aimlessly, as they have been for the past few weeks. Having spoken to a few fund managers, the only conclusion one can draw is that we are currently witnessing a trading market without any direction. Diversified growth funds are witnessing this in their net asset values (NAVs).

Growth fund investors have seen their investments erode significantly over the past 6 months. So the last couple of weeks would have come as a breath of fresh air to investors as their investments have perked up, with the markets showing some (erratic) growth.

For the second week running, growth funds are witnessing a surge in NAVs, as is more than evident from the table below.

Open-ended, Growth Funds	NAV (Rs)	Last week	Last month	Last year	Since inception
BSE-30	-	5.8%	3.3%	14.5%	-
S&P CNX 50	-	5.3%	5.3%	20.4%	-
CRISIL-500	-	5.0%	0.0%	12.6%	-
Magnum Equity Fund	13.9	2.9%	-12.9%	13.6%	15.2%
ING Growth (Gr)	17.4	2.8%	-7.8%	49.3%	57.2%
IL&FS Gr & Val (Gr)	13.5	2.8%	-9.3%	0.0%	11.7%
DSP ML Opportunities (Gr)	9.0	2.7%	-9.4%	0.0%	1.7%
Canexpo	18.3	2.1%	-6.7%	19.7%	12.1%
Alliance Equity Fund (Gr)	35.6	2.0%	-6.4%	64.0%	89.6%
Zurich(I) Equity (Gr)	19.5	1.9%	-7.2%	13.6%	13.8%
Pru ICICI Growth (Gr)	21.5	1.8%	-9.6%	18.4%	42.3%
DSP ML Equity Fund	18.2	1.7%	-10.1%	-1.5%	28.7%
Tata Pure Equity	13.0	1.7%	-10.4%	31.8%	47.8%
JM Equity Fund (Gr)	10.9	1.5%	-8.6%	-9.0%	2.2%

(Only growth funds with over 1.5% growth in the
last week are included in the above table)

However, given the fact that the markets are in a trading zone, it is anyone's guess how long this growth can be sustained. Investors who opted for the systematic investment plan can employ rupee-cost averaging to good benefit by entering funds at lower levels and buying a larger number of units for a fixed cost. Others can also employ value-averaging, a variant of rupee-cost averaging.

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