Observers reckon this has nothing to do with the quality of the announcements. Chidambarm's 1996-97 Budget was widely welcomed by the industry where he was seen quoting inspiring Tamil poetry from Tirukkural. The market, however, bashed it up. Again in 2001-02, the Budget was in line with industry expectations. The technology meltdown and the Ketan Parekh scam, however, saw the Sensex lose around 15% in the next one month. This is by far the largest loss by the Sensex in a month after the Budget.

Off the three times when the Sensex was in the positive zone, the market had few expectations from the government. The first such occasion was in 1998-99, when Yashwant Sinha presented his first Budget for the Bhartiya Janata Party. The market feared that the BJP, given its swadeshi philosophy, would put the liberalisation process in limbo and, in fact, take retrogade steps. Sinha announced a Budget that proved that the market fears were misplaced. Even in 2004-05, when the NDA presented an interim budget followed by the UPA's full Budget in July, market expectations were low given the political uncertainty. Analysts and fund managers were upbeat on the economic prospects, but were concerned about the political turnout.

So when the announcements saw political commitment to continuous economic growth the market celebrated again. This time around, market experts believe that the indices will take a beating. “The futures market is seeing sustained action with short positions far out numbering long ones on the index futures segments. However, the same is not applicable to individual stock futures,” said a derivatives trader.

Even in the last two years, the Sensex dropped after Budget. The expectations from the minister have been high both the times.