Union budget investing: Long-term reality & short-term illusion. 6 stocks from 3 sectors only for long-term investors

Till a couple years back, the railways and general budget were presented separately. At that time, a trend used to be visible on the street. Some railway stocks would see a rally before the budget. But as words like “anti-collision” were used in the speech, the stocks would again underperform a few trading sessions down the line. Now there is no separate railway budget and the expenditure on railways is much higher. In the last few years, a similar trend is visible in stocks from other sectors. They move just ahead of the budget and then go back into underperformance mode. So, if you are picking a stock because of expectations from the budget, or because of an announcement related to the sector, it would be better to keep this important aspect of the budget-day investing in mind.