Indian markets continued to rise in early trade for the third day following positive global cues on Tuesday. Both Sensex and Nifty were trading at a new life time high.

The 30-share benchmark index, BSE Sensex opened with a gain of 264.04 points or 0.60% at 44,341.19, while the broad based NSE Nifty started with a rise of 76.15 points or 0.59%, at 13,002.60.

At 9.44 a.m., the Sensex was trading up 297.56 points or 0.68% at 44,374.71 with 21 components gaining.  Meanwhile, the Nifty was trading higher by 104.60 points or 0.81% at 13,031.05 with 38 components gaining.  

Biggest gainers in the 30-share index were Mahindra and Mahindra (2.92%), Maruti Suzuki India  (2.69%), Tech Mahindra (2.69%), HDFC Bank  (1.87%),  HCL Technologies  (1.81%), ITC (1.68%) and ICICI Bank  (1.40%).

On the other hand, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries  (0.65%), Reliance Industries (0.62%), ONGC (0.39%), Bajaj Finance (0.26%), Titan (0.24%) and Power Grid (0.15%) were the major losers in the Sensex.

Market breadth was positive with 1,344 advances against 687 declines.