Mumbai, July 16 -- Indian benchmark indices on Wednesday opened flat due to the weakness in Asian markets and cautious investors' sentiment ahead of the corporate earnings and major economic updates on trade discussions.

At the opening of the trading session today, BSE Sensex opened at 82,534.66 levels, down 36.24 points, and the Nifty at National Stock Exchange (NSE) was down 0.80 points from its previous close at 25,196.60.

In the initial hour, about 1271 stocks were advancing, the stocks of 818 companies declined, and 171 stocks remained unchanged.

ON NSE, the SBI Life Insurance, Trent, Tech Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, and Tata Consumer emerged as the major gainers, while the losers were Shriram Finance, Cipla, Hindalco, Reliance Indus...