India’s leading stock exchanges, the BSE and the NSE, will hold a full trading session on February 1, 2026, even though the date falls on a Sunday. The move comes ahead of the presentation of the Union Budget 2026, a day that traditionally triggers heightened volatility and heavy investor participation.
Earlier this month, both exchanges confirmed that trading would proceed as usual. In a circular dated January 16, the NSE said, “On account of the presentation of the Union Budget, members are requested to note that Exchange shall be conducting a live trading session on February 01, 2026, as per the standard market timings (9:15 AM-3:30 pm).”
The announcement signals that Dalal Street will remain fully operational as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Budget at 11 AM in the Lok Sabha, her ninth consecutive Budget speech, placing her among the longest-serving finance ministers to deliver uninterrupted annual Budgets.
Why Markets Open On Budget Day – Even On A Sunday
February 1 has become the standard date for the Union Budget in recent years, and markets have adjusted accordingly. In 2025 and 2020, as well as February 28, 2015, exchanges opened on weekends to ensure real-time price discovery as fiscal announcements unfolded.
The logic is straightforward. The Union Budget sets the tone for fiscal policy, taxation, spending priorities and sectoral incentives for the coming financial year. Markets prefer to react instantly rather than wait for the next working day, reducing uncertainty and limiting overnight speculation.
With global investors closely tracking India’s macroeconomic direction, keeping exchanges open ensures transparency and orderly trading.
The Economic Backdrop: Survey First, Budget Next
Ahead of the Budget, the Ministry of Finance released the Economic Survey on January 29, followed by a press briefing by Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran and senior officials. The Survey typically lays out the broader economic assessment: growth trends, fiscal risks, inflation dynamics and reform priorities.
The Department of Economic Affairs leads the preparation of the Budget documents, detailing projected revenues, expenditures and new schemes for the upcoming fiscal year.
For investors, this sequence, Survey followed by Budget, offers early clues about policy direction.
What Sectors Are Hoping For
As Budget Day approaches, industry leaders are articulating more structured, outcome-focused expectations rather than broad wish lists.
Creator Economy Seeks Tax Clarity
The rapidly expanding creator and digital entrepreneur ecosystem is looking for clearer taxation norms and simplified compliance structures. Deepak Chhabra, Founder of Jubliexx, points out that many independent creators currently operate with an effective tax burden of 20-30 per cent. He suggests that a simplified or presumptive taxation framework, along with rationalised GST treatment, could bring that down to around 10-15 per cent. Such a move, he believes, could lift take-home earnings by 15-25 per cent for small and mid-level creators and accelerate formalisation within the sector.
Beyond tax reform, the segment is also seeking policy incentives for homegrown creator platforms and continued investment in digital infrastructure such as broadband and cloud capacity.
According to Chhabra, clearer monetisation guidelines and innovation-linked incentives could help transform content creation into a more stable micro-entrepreneurial opportunity and position India as a global digital content hub.
Healthcare Sector Flags Medical Inflation
Healthcare stakeholders are focusing on affordability and preventive care. Srikanth Kandikonda, Chief Financial Officer at ManipalCigna Health Insurance, underscores that medical inflation remains one of the most pressing concerns, currently projected at 11.5 per cent-14 per cent, among the highest in Asia.
While steps such as removing GST on insurance premiums and permitting 100 percent FDI in insurance could strengthen the sector, he notes that rising treatment costs continue to strain household finances.
Public health expenditure, he argues, remains below global benchmarks and even below the National Health Policy target of 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2025. A higher allocation towards primary care and preventive services could ease long-term cost pressures.
Kandikonda also advocates enhanced tax incentives for OPD services and preventive health screenings beyond existing Section 80D limits, saying that prevention-led policy could significantly improve health outcomes, especially given India’s ageing population and rising chronic disease burden.
Financing And Infrastructure Reforms In Focus
From the financing and advisory space, the emphasis is on execution discipline rather than aggressive credit expansion. Jyoti Prakash Gadia, Managing Director of Resurgent India Limited, notes that infrastructure financing has evolved from being perceived as high-risk to becoming one of the safer asset classes, largely because project models have matured.
He suggests that Budget 2026 should reinforce public-private partnership (PPP) frameworks, viability gap funding and Hybrid Annuity models to ensure balanced risk allocation. According to Gadia, the bigger bottleneck today is not capital availability but execution certainty. Simplifying approvals, preserving contract sanctity and ensuring regulatory predictability could unlock greater domestic and international investment flows.
On MSMEs, he believes the challenge is less about access to credit and more about compliance and awareness. Encouraging formalisation, improving financial literacy and enforcing timely payments, particularly from large corporates and public sector undertakings, would strengthen the ecosystem more sustainably than merely expanding lending schemes.
What To Expect On February 1
Trading on Budget Day is often marked by sharp swings in benchmark indices as investors react to tax changes, fiscal deficit targets and sectoral allocations. The fact that the session falls on a Sunday is unlikely to dampen participation.
With standard trading hours from 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM, markets will respond live to announcements from the Lok Sabha. For retail and institutional investors alike, February 1 promises to be a defining session, not just for portfolios, but for the direction of policy in the year ahead.
