Mumbai, April 17 : After three consecutive days of gains, the domestic benchmark indices opened in red on Thursday amid weak global cues, as selling was seen in the IT and auto sectors in the early trade.

At around 9.27 am, Sensex was trading 338.13 points or 0.44 per cent down at 76,706.16 while the Nifty declined 120.75 points or 0.52 per cent at 23,316.45

Nifty Bank was up 62.25 points or 0.12 per cent at 53,180.00. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 52,300.65 after declining 44.90 points or 0.09 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 16,347.85 after declining 1.40 points or 0.01 per cent.

According to market watchers, after a negative opening, Nifty can find support at 23,300 followed by 23,200 and 23,000. On the higher side, 23,500 can be an immediate resistance, followed by 23,600 and 23,800.

'The charts of Bank Nifty indicate that it may get support at 52,800 followed by 52,500 and 52,300. If the index advances further, 53,300 would be the initial key resistance, followed by 53,500 and 53,800,' said Hardik Matalia, Derivative Analyst of Choice Broking.

Meanwhile, in the Sensex pack, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Tata Steel, TCS, L&T, M&M, Bajaj Finance, Titan, Asian Paints, Nestle India, Tata Motors were the top losers. Whereas, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma, NTPC and HDFC Bank were the top gainers.

In the last trading session, Dow Jones in the US declined 1.73 per cent to close at 39,669.39. The S&P 500 declined 2.24 per cent to 5,275.70 and the Nasdaq declined 3.07 per cent to close at 16,307.16.

In the Asian markets, Jakarta was trading in red. Whereas Japan, Seoul, China, Bangkok and Hong Kong were trading in green.

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) extended buying on second day on April 16 as they bought equities worth Rs 3,936.42 crore. However, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) extended their selling on second session as they sold equities of Rs 2,512.77 crore on the same day.

/IANS