Benchmark equity indices declined in early trade on Wednesday in line with weak trends from the Asian markets and continuous foreign fund outflows.

Extending its previous day's downtrend, the 30-share BSE Sensex declined 363.09 points to 73,148.76. The NSE Nifty dropped 116.9 points to 22,185.60.

From the Sensex basket, Asian Paints, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC Bank, Nestle and Mahindra & Mahindra were the major laggards.

Tata Steel, Maruti, State Bank of India and JSW Steel were among the gainers.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong quoted lower.

Wall Street ended on a mixed note on Tuesday.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 3,668.84 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.30 per cent to USD 82.91 a barrel.

Paring all its early gains, the BSE benchmark went lower by 383.69 points or 0.52 per cent to settle at 73,511.85 on Tuesday. The NSE Nifty declined 140.20 points or 0.62 per cent to 22,302.50.

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