Markets rejoice RBI measures; Bonds, rupee rally

Markets continued to trade firm this Thursday while rupee recovered significantly against the dollar after country's new central bank governor unveiled fresh measures to shore up the rupee and aid overseas inflows.

At 10:20AM, the 30-share Sensex rose 380 points at 18, 948 and the 50-share Nifty gained 126 points at 5,574 levels.

In his first media conference as governor, Raghuram Rajan unveiled a slew of reforms, many of those focused on “protecting the value of money”.  

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to offer banks a window to swap fresh foreign currency non-resident (banks) dollar funds. These are mobilised for a minimum tenor of three years and at a fixed rate of 3.5 per cent per annum.

RBI’s move follows banks’ request to consider a special concessional window to swap FCNR deposits.

RBI has also decided to raise the current overseas borrowing limit of the unimpaired tier-I capital.

The broader markets traded firm with mid-caps and small-caps gaining nearly 1-1.4 per cent on the BSE.

The market breadth was positive. Out of 1,529 stocks traded, 1,076 stocks advanced while 375 stocks declined on the BSE.


RUPEE

The rupee recovered today as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, Raghuram Rajan lifted the sentiment in the foreign exchange market by announcing a slew of measures that are set to boost the rupee against the dollar.

At 10:20AM, the partially convertible rupee was trading at 65.79per dollar against the yesterday’s close of 67.09 on the Interbank Foreign Exchange.


GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian stocks rose for a sixth day and emerging-market currencies strengthened as central banks from Japan to Europe review monetary policy.

Japan’s Nikkei was flat at 14,054, Singapore’s Straits Times gained 1% at 3,045, China’s Shanghai Composite index fell 0.1% at 2,124 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.3% to 22,603 today.

The Bank of Japan left unchanged its unprecedented easing plan at the end of a two-day gathering today, ahead of policy meetings by central banks in the U.K. and euro zone.

STOCK MOVERS

Domestically, the key sectoral indices gainers included banks, capital goods, realty, FMCG, PSU while IT and technology sectors lead the drop on the BSE.

The gainers included counters such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank gained 8% and 6% respectively, ITC rose 4.5%, SBI was up 4% while HDFC added 5% on the BSE.

The laggards were Infosys declining 2%, TCS shed 2.6%, Wipro declined 0.8%, GAIL fell 0.6% on the BSE.

The key notable movers included counters such as those of companies that have applied for a banking licence are in focus after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Mr Raghuram Rajan roughly indicated that new bank licenses are likely to be announced around January 2014.

Bajaj Finance, JM Financial Services, LIC Housing Finance, IFCI, L&T Finance Holdings, Muthoot Finance, India Infoline and IDFC are up 4-6% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).