Equity benchmarks remained on the backfoot on Tuesday with the BSE Sensex falling 340.76 points in early trade amid weak global markets.

The 30-share BSE benchmark opened on a weak note and declined 340.76 points to 54,054.47 in initial trade. The broader NSE Nifty dipped 72.65 points to 16,143.35.

Among the Sensex constituents, Tata Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC, UltraTech Cement, Nestle, Bajaj Finance and ICICI Bank were the major laggards in early trade.

NTPC, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti Airtel were among the gainers.

In Asia, markets in Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong were trading lower. The US markets had ended lower on Monday.

"Caution will be the buzzword for today's trading as overnight US benchmark indices faltered while other Asian gauges too have retreated sharply in early trades.

"While there seems to be no respite from FII selling, DIIs too joined the bandwagon and offloaded shares in yesterday's trades, selling to the tune of Rs 170 crore and Rs 297 crore, respectively. Although the selling was not that aggressive, it's enough to dent bullish sentiments," said Prashanth Tapse, Vice President (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd.

The BSE benchmark declined 86.61 points or 0.16 per cent to settle at 54,395.23 on Monday. The Nifty dipped 4.60 points or 0.03 per cent to 16,216.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude declined 1.43 per cent to USD 105.46 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers on Monday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 170.51 crore, as per exchange data.