Budget 2019: Market analysts expect finance minister to take steps reduce corporate tax rate.

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 Indexes started the Budget week on a positive note with the Sensex rising over 300 points and Nifty reclaiming its crucial psychological level of 11,850. The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Budget for full financial year 2019-20 of the re-elected National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Friday, July 5. Market participants have host of expectations from the first Budget of the new government and many analysts pointed to today's positive start as the beginning of a pre-Budget upmove on hopes of economic reforms that could pull the economic growth which fell to 5.8 per cent in the March quarter.

As of 1:50 pm, the Sensex rose 296 points or 0.75 per cent to 39,691 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index advanced 0.65 per cent or 76 points to 11,865.

Many analysts have told NDTV that the finance minister is expected to announce steps to reduce corporate tax, ensure transmission of lower interest rates to the end-user, and steps for revival of consumption to boost the economic growth.

"We need to have a reasonable tax regime for corporates as multiple taxes deter investors to invest in India and a roadmap towards that will be watched out in the Budget 2019," AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital Market, told NDTV in a telephonic conversation.

In today's session, fifteen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE were trading higher led by the S&P BSE Realty Index's 2 per cent gain. Auto, Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services, Industrial, Information Technology, Bankex and Finance sector gauges also rose between 0.5 and 1.25 per cent each.

On the flipside, S&P BSE Oil & Gas Index was top loser, down 1.5 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as the S&P BSE MidCap Index advanced 0.44 per cent and the S&P BSE SmallCap Index advanced 0.23 per cent.

Dr. Reddy's Labs was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 3.6 per cent to Rs 2,643. Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Zee Entertainment, Indiabulls Housing Finance, HDFC, Eicher Motors and UPL were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, ONGC, Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil, Coal India, Titan, HCL Technologies, Bharti Infratel and UltraTech Cement were among the losers.