9 things that will impact the market today

• Asian markets open in the negative. Japan’s Nikkei is trading down around 1% and the Hang Seng (the Honkong index) is also trading low, down 1%.

• Overnight, US equities plunged sharply, as did commodities. All three major indices finished down, on rising concerns of a slowdown in the US and, perhaps, China. Oil, gold and silver too had a bad trading day.

[caption id=“attachment_8432” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Bull is back. LIC will invest Rs 60,000 crore in equities this year. Reuters”]  [/caption]

• Back home, GDP growth expectations are being scaled back. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee yet again flagged the risk that volatile commodity prices could drag down GDP growth to less than 9% this year.

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• However, it’s not all grim news. The biggest bull in the Indian market is back with a bigger moneybag. Life Insurance Corporation of India, the country’s largest institutional investor, plans to invest Rs 60,000 crore in equities this financial year. That’s sharply up from its Rs 43,000 crore investment in 2010-11. To put that in perspective, the combined investments of all FIIs put together last year was Rs 36,460 crore.

• Coal India could stage a coup if the government gives it the 14 coal blocks it had de-allocated on May 5 to six PSUs, including NTPC, and three private firms for their failure to start mining from the projects for captive use. That de-allocation decision, of course, is still open to review. There’s a buzz around the Coal India stock, which was recently re-rated by broking firms. Analysts expect sales to increase by 14% and net profits to jump even higher by 42%, largely on account of the price increase in the past quarter.

• Reliance Power coal blocked. In a blow toReliance Power, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said the ‘No-Go’ status of the coal block that would have supplied coal to the company’s ultra mega power project in Sasan remains. The Reliance Power-owned Sasan project relies on the Chhatrasal coal block nearby for coal supply, but the Environment Ministry put it on the ‘No-Go’ areas list a while ago. The company wrote to the Coal Ministry seeking a revision, but that isn’t about to happen.

• Following the directive by the High Court**, Oil ministry officials met with executives from the steel, power and fertilizer sectors on the issue of gas re-allocation**. With gas production at the KG-D6 falling to nearly 49 mmscmd, the government will decide on reallocation of gas to users on 18 May. Reliance, following the directive of the Oil Ministry had cut gas supply to non-priority sectors - a move that resulted in Essar Steel, Welspun Maxsteel and Ispat Industries moving court. The steel sector now gets only 20% of their requirement from KG Basin.

• More corporate results coming in. Grasim reported a 13% fall in its consolidated net profit for the year ended March 31, 2011; profits were down to Rs 2,397 crore from Rs 2,745 crore last year although sales rose 7% to Rs 21,585 crore against Rs 20,195 crore.