Mumbai, Jul 2 (IANS): Indian equity Indices closed flat on Tuesday following profit booking in midcap and smallcap stocks. At closing, Sensex was down 34 points, at 79,441 and Nifty was down 18 points, at 24,123.

During trading hours IT stocks lead the market. Three of the top five top gainers in the Sensex were from the IT sector.

L&T, Wipro, Infosys, HDFC Bank, and TCS were the top gainers. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, IndusInd Bank and ICICI Bank were the top losers.

Smallcap and midcap stocks ended lower due to profit booking. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was down 437 points or 0.78 per cent at 55,854 and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 18,509, down 84 points or 0.46 per cent.

Among the sectoral Indices, Auto, PSU Bank, FMCG, metal and pvt bank were major gainers and IT, pharma, realty, and energy were major laggards.

Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities said, "The Nifty faced profit booking around 24,200, leading to a close 100 points off the high. The sentiment is likely to favour selling on rallies until it moves above 24,250."

"On the lower end, 24,000 is likely to act as immediate support for the Nifty. A fall below 24,000 might trigger a correction towards 23,850/23,700," he added.