Stock market analyst Ashwani Gujral has maintained ‘Buy’ rating on Canara Bank to achieve a short term target between Rs 298 – Rs 324.

According to Mr. Gujral, interested traders can buy the stock with a strict stop loss of Rs 264.

The shares of the company on Monday (July 20) closed at Rs 278.1 as against its last closure of Rs 273.35 on Friday (July 17) on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 50.55 & 5.50 respectively.

The scrip hit an intraday high of Rs 281.50 and an intraday low of Rs 274.10. The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 297.20 and a low of Rs 135 on BSE.

According to the reports, the meeting of Board of Directors of the Canara Bank will be held on July 22, 2009, inter alia, to sanction the Unaudited Financial Results for the three month period ended June 30, 2009 (Q1).

On July 07, Tata Motors signed a deal with Canara Bank in order to provide a single window to clients for getting auto loans for Fiat cars distributed by Tata Motors.

Under the deal, Canara Bank will offer loans up to 90% of vehicle’s "on-road cost", which carries an interest rate of 11% p.a., for a period of up to 7-years.

The loan facility will be available on range on Fiat cars including Linea, Palio and the recently launched hatchback- Grande Punto.

Though the bank is making attempts to develop organically at 23% in 2009 to touch a business-mix of Rs. 4,00,000 crore by opening up 200 new arms in addition to 10 abroad braches, Chairman & Managing Director AC Mahajan had recently announced that the mergers and acquisitions are the only method to grow up.