Rupee gains on dollar inflows
Mumbai: The rupee gained 14 paise on good dollar inflows and closed at 44.55 on Thursday. The rupee opened at 44.72/74 and strengthened in day trade. On Wednesday, the rupee had closed at 44.69/70.

Forwards: The six-month forward premium closed at 1.99 per cent (1.81 per cent) and the one-year closed at 1.81 per cent (1.70 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices slid by almost 13 paise on profit booking by investors and tight liquidity on Thursday. Total traded volumes on the order matching system dropped sharply to Rs 3,510 crore (Rs 8,305 crore).

G-secs: The 7.59 per cent 10-year 2016 paper opened at Rs 100.02 (7.58 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs 99.88 (7.60 per cent YTM) against Rs 100.01 (7.58 per cent YTM) at the earlier close. The 8.07 per cent 11-year 2017 paper opened at Rs 103.44 (7.57 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs 103.36 (7.58 per cent YTM) against previous close of Rs 103.45 (7.57 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates ruled between 6.65 per cent and 6.75 per cent against 6.7-6.8 per cent.

Reverse repo: In the first one-day reverse-repo auction under LAF, the RBI received and accepted four bids amounting to Rs365 crore.

There were no repo bids.

In the second one-day reverse-repo auction, the RBI accepted and received nine bids for Rs 6,580 crore.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 366 trades aggregating to Rs 19,856.50 crore in the 6.01-6.50 per cent range.
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Govt approves restructuring of Central Bank capital
New Delhi: The government has permitted government owned Central Bank of India, to restructure its capital base for strengthening the balance sheet. This virtually clears the decks for the bank's initial public offering (IPO).

The union cabinet has approved the Mumbai-based bank to convert Rs800 crore worth of equity capital out of its total Rs1,124.14 crore equity into perpetual non-cumulative preference shares, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.

"The decision is expected to strengthen the balance sheet of the bank besides providing it with flexibility to raise capital at a competitive cost," he added.

The capital restructuring will help the bank in strengthening its capital adequacy ratio to the levels of internationally accepted Basel II norms.
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Canara Bank may be rated `investment grade'
Bangalore: Canara Bank is expected to get a "Baa2" rating by international rating agency Moody's currently one notch above India's sovereign rating.

Canara Bank has informed the domestic stock exchanges that it is also expected to secure a "BBB" rating from Fitch another international rating agency. Both these ratings put the bank in the investment grade slot. Investment grade is also the rating for Tata Steel.

Canara Bank has secured the rating ahead of its road show for its $ 300 million medium term notes. This rating bankers said also was a precursor to an upgrade of India's sovereign rating. The sovereign rating is currently Baa3, which is speculative grade. Fitch's rating for India is "BBB-".

The road show for CanBank's MTN issue will take place on November 14 and 15 in Singapore and London respectively. Bankers were already optimistic that the pricing would be favourable. Bankers said that the investment grade rating affirmed that optimism. The expected pricing for the issue is between 100-125 basis points over the London Interbank offered rate.
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