Rupee strengthens by 35 paise
Mumbai: The rupee strengthened by 35 paise against the dollar on sustained dollar selling by major companies. The rupee closed at 40.88, a dollar, higher than the previous close of 41.23/24. The rupee opened at 41.05, which was also the intra-day low, to close at 40.88. Forex dealers expect rupee to trade in the 40.75 - 41 range this week.

In forwards, the six-month premia closed at 4.92 per cent (4.42 per cent) while the 12-month ended at 4.25 per cent (3.96 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices rose 12 paise and yields went down two basis points on renewed buying interest from traders. Total traded volumes on the order matching system were Rs2,030 crore (Rs1,205 crore). The Rs6,000-crore MSS auction on Wednesday is expected to drain out some liquidity from the system said dealers.

G-secs: The 8.07 per cent - 10 year-2017 paper opened at Rs99.30 (8.18 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs99.44 (8.15 per cent YTM) against Rs99.32 (8.17 per cent YTM) on Friday.

The 7.38 per cent -2015 paper opened at Rs95.25 (8.18 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs95.25 (8.18 per cent YTM) against Friday's close of Rs95.25 (8.18 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates rose to 8.50 - 9 per cent on Monday against the previous close of 2.25 - 2.50 per cent.

Reverse repo: In the first one - day repo auction, the RBI received and accepted seven bids for Rs2,650 crore. There was no reverse repo bid in the first one - day auction. In the second one - day reverse repo auction, it received and accepted one bid for Rs25 crore. In the second one - day repo auction, it received and accepted 29 bids for Rs13,845 crore.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 373 trades aggregating Rs22,007.20 crore in the 7.30 - 8.20 per cent range.
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LIC Housing Q4 net doubles at Rs89 crore
Mumbai: LIC Housing Finance has registered a more than two-fold increase in profit after tax at Rs89.14 crore for the quarter ended March 31, as compared to Rs41.38 crore for the same quarter last year.

Total income grew by 28 per cent to Rs453.69 crore for the quarter ended March 31, from Rs354.20 crore for the yea-ago period, LIC Housing informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The board of directors at its meeting declared a final dividend of 30 per cent on equity shares in addition to interim dividend of 50 per cent already paid.

For the year ended March 31, the company recorded a profit after tax of Rs279.14 crore as compared to Rs208.57 crore for the period under consideration previous year.

The total income of the company increased to Rs1,583.25 crore for the year ended March 31, from Rs1,268.83 crore a year ago.

The shares of LIC Housing were trading at Rs160.50, up 4.46 per cent on the BSE, in afternoon trade.
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Bill passed on trading in securitised debt instruments
New Delhi: The Lok Sabha has passed a Bill that provides the legal framework for listing and trading of securitised debt instruments or certificates on the country's stock exchanges. The Securities Contracts (Regulation) Amendment Bill 2007 was passed by voice-vote without any discussion.

This revised Bill also specifies that issuance of securitised debt instruments would be governed by `disclosure-based regulations' of SEBI as against the earlier planned approval-based approach. The Securities and Exchange Board of India will frame the `disclosure-based' regulations, which would specify the eligibility criteria and other requirements that an issuer needs to fulfill before offering securitised debt instruments to public or getting them listed in a stock exchange.

An approval-based approach would have meant that SEBI nod would be mandatory for every securitisation transaction.
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Royal Sundaram net profit soars 144 pc
Chennai: Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company has reported a 144 per cent growth in net profit to Rs21 crore during year ended March 31. The company earned premium income of Rs600.58 crore, a growth of 30 per cent over the previous year. Personal insurance accounted for Rs391 crore while commercial insurance contributed Rs210 crore to premium income. Motor insurance accounted for 51 per cent of the total premium, fire and engineering insurance (22 per cent), accident and health (21 per cent), while marine insurance accounted for three per cent.

On contribution of investment income, he said that in the previous fiscal, it had risen to Rs32 crore (Rs21 crore).
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Indian Bank net up 57 pc
Chennai: The consolidated operating profit of the Indian Bank and its three subsidiaries Indbank Merchant Banking Services Ltd, Indbank Housing Ltd and Indfund Management Ltd increased by 53.85 per cent to Rs1,386.15 crore against Rs900.96 crore in the previous year. Consolidated net profit increased to Rs810.03 crore for 2006-07, up 57.14 per cent over the previous year's Rs515.47 crore.

Indbank Housing registered a net profit of Rs25.21 crore, while Indbank Merchant Banking and Indfund Management registered profits of Rs21.17 crore and Rs2.50 crore, respectively. The total business of the bank stood at Rs76,082 crore, up 20. 44 per cent over the previous year's Rs63,167 crore. Capital adequacy ratio improved to 14.22 per cent from 13.25 per cent, the release said.
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RBI buys $2.3 billion in March
Chennai: The Reserve Bank of India bought $2.3 billion in March, according to figures given by the RBI in its monthly bulletin. In the fiscal ended March 31, 2007 the RBI purchased $26.8 billion which would have released rupee currency equivalent to Rs1,18,994 crore into the system. Forex reserves rose by nearly $40 billion during the fiscal ended March 2007. The bulk of the purchases came in the month of February when the RBI bought nearly $12 billion.

The RBI purchased about $4.3 billion in April 2006 and another $0.5 billion in May 2006. This was followed by a spell of keeping away from the market for the next five months. In November, the RBI resumed buying dollars, to a total of $3.2 billion.

The rupee started appreciating sharply from mid-March when it was trading at 44.21 to the dollar. There has been no sale of dollars during the fiscal, according to the bulletin.

In the previous fiscal ended March 2006, there was a purchase of about $15 billion and a sale of about $7 billion.
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