Mumbai, Oct 31 : On the auspicious occasion of Diwali, the Indian stock market opened flat on Thursday as selling was seen in auto, IT, PSU bank and FMCG sectors in early trade.

The Sensex was trading at 79,800.49 after slipping 141.69 points or 0.18 per cent. At the same time, Nifty was trading at 24,311.10 after slipping 29.75 points or 0.12 per cent.

The market trend remained positive. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1030 stocks were trading in green, while 613 stocks were trading in red.

The Nifty Bank was at 51,844.45 after rising 36.95 points or 0.07 per cent. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 56,167.45 after slipping 171.80 points or 0.30 per cent. At the same time, the Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 18,359.60 after slipping 31.30 points or 0.14 per cent.

L&T, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, Hindustan Unilever, JSW Steel and Nestle India were the top gainers in the Sensex pack. At the same time, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, TCS, HCL Tech, Titan and Maruti were the top losers.

In Asian markets, except Tokyo and Seoul markets, the markets of Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Jakarta and Seoul were trading in green.

The US stock markets closed in red on the previous trading day.

According to market experts, this Diwali it is unlikely to see fireworks in the market.

India has been underperforming in October with Nifty down 5.7 per cent when markets in the US and Japan have delivered positive returns and China and Hong Kong have hugely outperformed.

India's underperformance is driven by relentless FII selling and concerns over slowing earnings growth. In the near term, this scenario is unlikely to change, reversing the trend decisively, even though mild pullbacks are possible, they said.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 4,613 crore on October 30, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 4,518 crore on the same day.

/IANS