Stock markets climbed in early trade on Tuesday, with the Sensex climbing over 264 points, ahead of the Union Budget presentation later in the day as investors' sentiment turned buoyant amid foreign fund inflows and a rally in the US peers.

The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 264.33 points to 80,766.41 in early trade. The NSE Nifty went up 73.3 points to 24,582.55.

Among the Sensex pack, UltraTech Cement, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, Larsen & Toubro and NTPC were the biggest gainers.

HCL Tech, Power Grid, JSW Steel and Tata Steel were among the laggards. However, later, both the benchmark indices faced heavy volatile trends and were trading flat.

"The market participants will be closely watching for any tweaks in LTCGs tax. If there are no changes in LTCGs tax that will be a big relief for the market and the market is likely to react positively to that. Stock-specific reactions will depend on the Budget proposals for specific sectors," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 3,444.06 crore on Monday, according to exchange data.

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

The US markets ended in positive territory on Monday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude traded marginally up by 0.02 per cent to USD 82.42 a barrel.

Falling for the second day in a row, the BSE benchmark fell 102.57 points or 0.13 per cent to settle at 80,502.08 on Monday.

The NSE Nifty dipped 21.65 points or 0.09 per cent to 24,509.25.

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