Call Rate In 10-10.5% Band

MONEY MARKET REPORT

Interest rate in the inter-bank overnight money market opened in the 10.5-10.75 per cent region, ruled in the 10-10.5 per cent band, and declined by the end of the day to 8.5-9 per cent.

According to money market dealers, there were some stray deals struck at around 8.25 per cent.The weighted average call money rate of Securities Trading Corporation of India was 9.99 per cent on a turnover of Rs 1,600 crore.The interesting point is that the sell-buy swaps executed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the foreign exchange market has not made any change in the liquidity position in the money market.

However RBI did not receive any bids at the three-day nine per cent fixed rate repos. There is a repo scheduled for today and the outflow would determine at what level call rate would rule during the course of next week.

Given the lower call rate, yields on treasury bills also moved down with the treasury bill maturing on April 10 and April 24 dealt at 10.75-13.5 per cent and 13.2 per cent respectively. Among dated securities, the 13.50 per cent paper maturing in 1998 as well as the 12.14 per cent 2000 was dealt at par.