Rupee stronger
Mumbai: The rupee was strong on the back of a weak dollar overseas on Thursday. The home currency opened at 46.70, and touched an intra-day high of 46.55 to finally close at 46.60/62.

The rupee ended at 46.80 on Wednesday. Dealers said that the dollar weakened against major global currencies. The rupee tracked the movement of the global currencies against the dollar, he said.

Forwards: In the forward premia market, the 12-month closed at 1.17 per cent (1.17 per cent) and the 6-month ended at 1.09 per cent (1.04 per cent).

Bonds: Prices initially fell in the bond market but ended firm after the successful completion of the Rs 4,000-crore government securities auction on Thursday.

G-Secs: The 7.59 per cent-10 year-2016 paper opened at Rs 95.78 (8.23 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs95.81 (8.22 per cent YTM), higher than Wednesday's close at Rs 95.73 (8.23 per cent YTM) .

The 9.39 per cent-5 year-2011 paper opened at Rs106.40 (7.80 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs106.38 (7.80 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates were between 6 per cent and 6.10 per cent, after the short-term rate hike by RBI.

Reverse repo: In the first three-day reverse repo auction under LAF, the RBI received and accepted 23 bids amounting to Rs27,275 crore and in the second three-day reverse repo auction, 36 bids for Rs17,560 crore. There were no repo bids.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 306 trades aggregating to Rs18092.20 crore in the 5.82-6.10 per cent range.
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SBI Q1 net falls due to lower treasury income
Mumbai: SBI's net profit for the first quarter fell by 35 per cent, mainly due to higher wage costs and lower treasury income.
SBI has reported a net profit of Rs798.57 crore for the three months ended June 2006 (Rs1,222.83 crore). While staff costs rose to Rs1,924.29 crore (Rs1,633.57 crore), treasury income dropped to Rs3,606.48 crore (Rs4,524.12 crore). In the corresponding previous period, the bank benefited from a one-time tax refund of Rs700 crore, which boosted its bottomline for that period.

O.P. Bhatt, chairman of the bank said SBI took a hit of about Rs696 crore in treasury income due to depreciation in value of Government securities.

Last year, for the Indian Millennium Deposit redemptions, the bank had bought securities at higher coupons, which also led to lower yield from treasury, he added. A banking analyst said that the figures are more or less in line with expectations.

Total income was lower at Rs10,598.75 crore (Rs10,742 crore), as was net interest at Rs3,884.09 crore (Rs4,253.24 crore).
Bhatt said that the bank was targeting deposit growth of 16-17 per cent and credit growth of 20-25 per cent in 2006-07.
On the BSE on Thursday, the SBI scrip closed at Rs762.85, up 1.19 per cent from the previous close of Rs753.85.
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LIC Housing net down 25 per cent
Mumbai: LIC Housing Finance has reported a decline of 25 per cent in its net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2006. Net profit fell to Rs37.46 crore from Rs50.17 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago, as higher borrowing costs put pressure on margins.

Company officials said margins for the quarter were at 1.25 per cent. The margins were at 1.45 per cent in the immediate previous quarter ended March 31. However, a hike in lending rates will start to show in the second and third quarters and improve margins substantially, he said.

Interest income grew 19 per cent for the quarter, and amounted to Rs322 crore (Rs271 crore). Total income at Rs340 crore, was also up by 19 per cent. The outstanding mortgage portfolio also grew 19 per cent to Rs15,393 crore (Rs12,889 crore).Individual loan disbursements rose 13 per cent to Rs1,063 crore. The scrip gained marginally rising by 75 paise on the BSE to close at Rs147.60.
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Union Bank to hike loan rates
New Delhi: Union Bank of India is likely to increase interest rates on home and personal loans next week, following the RBI's decision to hike short-term rates by 25 basis points.

The Mumbai-based bank also said it has received RBI's licence to open four overseas branches and representative offices.

The PSU bank's current home loan rates are in the range of 9.5-10 per cent.

As the bank is focusing on lending to corporate and financing exports, it is likely to open 4-5 overseas branches and offices this fiscal. It has received permission from the RBI to open two branches at Doha (Qatar) and Hong Kong and two representative offices in Shanghai and Dubai.
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