Watchout Market in Before the Budget

A new calendar month starts today, with the presentation of the Union Budget to be the main event. There is a general feeling that the run up to the budget provides a rally of some kind. But do the numbers support this claim? I coded a quick scan to find out what happens between the last day of January and the date before the15th of Feb. Here are the results:

Year   Change in Nifty points

95          -38.59

96           203.57
97          36.80
98          11.10
99            4.05
2000     198.30
2001     21.65
2002     74.60
2003     -5.85
2004      103.85
2005      40.65
2006      16.45
2007      -35.60
2008      64.55
2009      73.55


The study covers 15 years. Out of 15, we had 3 negative changes and 12 positive changes. This is raw data, since there were a few years in which the Union Budget was not presented in Feb.