Mumbai: Sensex @ 1pm: 15,554, down 142 pts.

Earlier, continuing its upward march for the third straight session today, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark Sensex rose by 93 points in early trade on the back of buying in heavy-weight stocks by funds and retail investors.

The 30-share index, which had risen by over 507 points in the past two sessions, gained 92.72 points to 15,789.62 in the first five minutes of trade. The National Stock Exchange’s index Nifty also moved up by 26.75 points to 4,679.75.

Marketmen said reports of flat to better trends in other Asian markets mainly influenced the trading sentiments here. Major support came from Reliance Industries, RCom among others. Reliance Industries stocks were traded up by Rs 2.55 at Rs 2,331.75, while RCom gained Rs 5.30 at Rs 535.50.

Other gainers were Reliance Infrastructure up by Rs 13.30 at Rs 1,117.95, HDFC Ltd by Rs 31.95 at Rs 2,330, Grasim Industries by Rs 7.75 at Rs 2,185, BHEL by Rs 9.20 at Rs 1,548.50,Tata Steel by Rs 3.85 at Rs 853.50 and ACC by Rs 5.50 at Rs 643.10. However, IT majors such as Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computers, Tata Consultancy and Wipro were in the negative zone on profit-taking.