Mumbai, Nov 6 (PTI) Extending gains for the third day in succession, the Bombay Stock Exchange bellwether Sensex today closed higher by 94 points today even though it lost a big chunk of gains posted in early trade.

Markets shot up by over 200 points in the morning taking positive cues from Asia where indices mirrored robust show by Wall Street overnight. Data showing a major rise in business production and a significant fall in unemployment claims helped US stocks end higher.

Banks and financial stocks on BSE, which were under pressure after the RBI raised provisioning norms for bad debts, surged in early trade. But soon after they came under selling pressure pulling down the Sensex after RBS posted 1.5 billion pounds operations losses for the September quarter.

But continuing positive sentiment on PSU shares averted a sharp fall.