Mumbai, May 29 (IANS): Indian equity benchmarks opened in red on Wednesday following negative global cues from Asian peers.

Sensex was down 414 points or 0.56 per cent, at 74,757 and Nifty was at 22,765, down 122 points or 0.53 per cent.

Midcap and smallcap stocks are performing better compared to largecap.

The Nifty midcap 100 index is down 56 points or 0.11 per cent, at 52,237 and the Nifty smallcap 100 index is up 38 points or 0.23 per cent, at 16,912 points.

The overall trend in Nifty is mixed. Out of the total stocks, 1,020 are in green, while 1,095 remain in red.

Auto, Fin Service, FMCG, and IT are major losers among the sector indices. However, Metal, PSU Bank, and Realty are major gainers.

Nine out of 30 Sensex stocks are trading in the green. Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, SBI, Kotak Mahindra and ITC are the top gainers. Whereas, M&M, Tech Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Asian Paints are the top losers.

Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Seoul are trading in the red. Only Shanghai is trading in the green. The US markets closed with a decline on Tuesday.

Crude oil benchmark Brent crude is at $84 per barrel and WTI crude is at $80 per barrel. Vaishali Parekh, Vice President-Technical Research, Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt. Ltd said: "Nifty witnessed a volatile session swinging between 22,850 and 23,000 levels, with the overall bias maintained cautiously positive. We need to watch and wait for further developments to settle down."

"As said earlier, Nifty has the crucial support of 22,780 - 22,800 levels, while on the upper side, it needs to breach the 23,100 zone decisively for the bias to turn positive and establish some conviction," she added.