Readings: Rate futures, LPG imports, Auction rate securities
- Economic Times: Rate futures may be here soon
. . . the panel has recommended that futures contracts should be based on the 10-year government bond. This could eventually be extended to 2-year, 5-year and 30-year government securities based on market response.
. . . the duration for short-selling must be extended, in such a manner that the tenor of the short sale transaction coincides with the futures contract. The panel feels that at least in the initial stages, only banks and bond houses should be allowed to undertake short-selling for a longer duration, but on the condition that the transaction is delivery-based.
Hope this doesn’t go the way of the SLBM.
India will need to double imports of liquefied petroleum gas in the year starting April 2009 after Reliance Industries Ltd., operator of the world’s third-biggest refinery, reduces domestic sales of the fuel.
Cooking gas is sold at 349.5 rupees a 14.2 kilogram bottle in Mumbai, or about $825 a metric ton. Saudi Aramco, the largest supplier of LPG to Asia, charges $860 a ton for propane and $890 a ton for butane, the two varieties of LPG.
Reliance may prefer to sell all its petroleum products overseas because of export incentives and the cap on domestic prices.
More inflation and/or subsidies in the pipeline?
- Bloomberg: Auction-Rate Writedowns May Be $4 Billion
Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG are among banks that may have to write down a total of $4 billion as they buy back auction-rate securities, according to Bank of America Inc.
Citigroup said yesterday it will offer to buy back about $7.3 billion of the debt from individual investors, while Merrill Lynch, also in New York, said it would take about $10 billion of the assets. Zurich, Switzerland-based UBS may repurchase auction-rate securities valued at $25 billion by regulators.
In other words: Citi, ML & UBS got their ARS handed to them.
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