MUMBAI, MARCH 24: The visit of US President Bill Clinton to the city failed to create any excitement on the stock market fraternity with the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex showing a gain of only 26 points. Select scrips led by telecom and some IT shares rallied mainly on short covering and renewed buying support from domestic institutionl investors. However, the upward movement in these select shares remained restricted in view of the last settlement of the current financial year 1999-2000. The BSE stopped its trading at 11.30 hrs to prepare for Clinton's visit to the stock exchange. ``Investors were busy squaring up their weekly positions. They don't anticipate any major benefit from Clinton's visit,'' said a broker. The 30-share Sensex opened on a weak note at 5083.17 from the previous close of 5115.02 points, touched the day's high of 5203.93 and tumbled by 150points intra-day and touched the day's low of 5052.74, before staging a smart recovery to close at 5141.42, showing a net gain of 26.40 points (0.51 per cent) as against the previous close. The BSE-100 index also advanced by 16.54 points at 2937.31 over the previous close of 2941.77. Brokers said domestic institutions led by UTI, LIC and others reportedly made considerable buying in select counters, resulting in a moderate spurt in Sensex in the short session. ``Institutions seem to have picked up shares in a bid to prevent any fall before Clinton's visit to the bourse in connection with the FICCI meeting scheduled to be held in the evening,'' said a broker. Infotech stocks largely ended higher helped by the government's moves to liberalise overseas acquisition norms. The government said late on Thursday said Indian knowledge firms can acquire overseas businesses through the ADR/GDR stock swap and under the automatic route upto 10 times the export earnings of the investing company Leading stocks that touched the upper end of the eight per cent circuit filter were Global Tele-Systems at Rs 2,294.45, Indian Aluminium Company at Rs 143.60 and Sonata Software at Rs 2,008.50.
