Mumbai: Indian equity indices opened in red on Wednesday following pressure in banking stocks.

At 9:55 a.m., Sensex was down 228 points or 0.28 per cent, at 80,123 and Nifty was down 58 points or 0.24 per cent, at 24,378.

Banking stocks are leading the fall. Nifty Bank is down 261 points or 0.50 per cent, at 52,307.

In the Sensex pack, M&M, SBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HCL Tech, TCS, JSW Steel, Axis Bank, and Reliance are the top losers. Maruti Suzuki, NTPC, Titan, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, and Tata Steel are top gainers.

The Nifty midcap 100 index is down 85 points or 0.17 per cent, at 56,976, and the Nifty smallcap 100 index is down 68 points or 0.36 per cent at 18,888.

Among the sectoral indices, FMCG, realty, energy, and infra are in the green, and Auto, IT, PSU Bank, and pharma are in the red.

Deven Mehata, Research Analyst at Choice Broking said: “Nifty has given a strong breakout above 24,400 levels and has closed at all-time high levels. Now on the lower side, 24,250-24,300 will act as a strong support.”

“Traders holding a long position should hold with a trailing stop loss of 24,250 on a closing basis. Fresh long positions should be entered on dips with the mentioned stop loss,” he added.