Mumbai, May 15 (IANS) Indian benchmark indices inched higher on Wednesday, following positive global cues.

At 9:50 a.m., Sensex was up by 162 points or 0.22 per cent, at 72,266 points and Nifty was up by 76 points or 0.34 per cent, at 22,293 points.

In early trade, Midcap and Smallcap outperformed benchmarks. The Nifty midcap 100 was up by 427 points or 0.85 per cent, at 50,652 points and the Nifty smallcap 100 was up by 152 points or 0.93 per cent, at 16,518 points.

Among sector indices, buying is in auto, IT, government banks, pharma, and metal stocks. At the same time, pressure has been seen on private finance companies in the market.

In the Sensex pack, 20 out of 30 shares were open in the green mark, and 10 shares were open in the red mark.

NTPC, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, ITC, and Power Grid were the top five gainers, whereas HDFC Bank, JSW Steel, HUL, UltraTech Cement, and M&M were the top losers.

According to Vaishali Parekh, Vice President - Technical Research, Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt Ltd, "Nifty witnessed a decent pullback from the 21800 zone to arrive near the significant 50 EMA zone of 22220 levels gaining strength and with improving bias is anticipated to rise further for next 22550 levels in the coming sessions."

"The zone near the 100 period MA of 22000 levels would be the crucial support zone which needs to sustain to maintain the bias intact," she added.

Most Asian markets are seeing mixed trading. The markets of Tokyo, Seoul, and Jakarta are trading in the green and the markets of Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Shanghai are trading in the red. US markets closed positive in Tuesday's session.