``The market is pretty close to the bottom. It is in a very volatile stage, moving about 100 points a day. Our view is it could go to 2800 level,'' Robert M Gibson, the managing director of Jardine Fleming India Securities said in an interview to PTI.

Gibson said the market could find support at that level as ``India, unlike other Asian countries, has a wide selection of companies which are managerially, financially and fundamentally sound''.

The stock markets have been witnessing a volatile phase losing about 850 points since the May nuclear tests, sanctions by the United States and the downgrading of sovereign rating by Moody's Investor Services.

About the continual slide of the rupee, he said the ``Rupee will need to steady and probably steady at Rs 44/45 a dollar. Historically, the rupee tends to go down in a stepby step fashion and the confidence of the rupee has receded.''

Gibson said despite the poor economic growth, stocks of power companies (BSES, BHEL, L&T), oil companies (HPCL, BPCL, IOC) and companies like ITC and HLL remained attractive. ``Telecom stocks look extremely cheap at the moment,'' he added.

On the heavy selling by foreign institutional investors and withdrawal of funds from Indian bourses, Gibson said these FIIs could re-enter once the market becomes attractive. ``Those selling stocks are the ones who are flexible. But they can come back quickly if things start to look well,'' he said. FIIs indulging in large-scale selling are the ones who can invest equally profitably in Latin America and `if they are concerned (about India), they will invest in some other place where the `check list' has more `ticks' than minus points,'' Gibson said.

However, ``India-dedicated funds holders are not sellers and they will continue to invest here,'' he added. Gibson said the closing down of various FIIs inIndia last year -- BZW, Natwest Securities and Barings -- were primarilly due to `strategic decision' by the parent company.

``It's true that the overall market size of FII investment is not enormous. So when there were 20 brokers, business would be distributed and withdrawal was fairly inevitable. We have got to a level when the remaining players could be profitable,'' Gibson added.

Regarding the downgrading by Moody's, Gibson said a review is possible if the government can in four months demonstrate that they have the political will by tangible reforms. On reforms, he said, the progress has been `intermittent' and `quite a lot needs to be done'.

However, he said ``there is a lot of understanding and greater intention for reforms that need to be taken further.''

The Asian crisis, Gibson said, showed India was prudent in not opening up the economy as demonstrated by the soundness of the banking system which did not lend on property. ``There are some positive points for taking a measured view of theopening of the economy,'' he said.

Pointing out that India was not totally insulated from the global markets, Gibson said export growth rate has slowed down quite dramatically ``probably because some markets have dried up or the rupee has not depreciated as much as other currencies in Asia.'