Sensex, Nifty, Midcap consolidate; PNB jumps 5%, BPCL falls

Moneycontrol Bureau12:58 pm Market falls: Equity benchmarks fell again amid consolidation. The Sensex declined 63.96 points to 23585.26 and the Nifty fell 20.25 points to 7171.50.The market breadth was weak as about 1238 shares declined against 976 advancing shares on the BSE.12:40 pm Asia Update: Asian shares slipped from near three-week highs on Friday as a rally in oil prices reversed and investors remained cautious about the outlook for the global economy.

Europe also looks set for a lacklustre start, with financial spreadbetters predicting Britain's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX will open little changed.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.6 percent, but gains in previous sessions left it on track for a weekly gain of 4.1 percent.

Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.4 percent as the yen firmed, but ended the week up 6.8 percent.12:20 pm Ex-SBI chairman on NPA: The problem of non-performing assets in public sector banks has grown to an alarming level mainly because of the lack of pro-active measures from the RBI in the initial stages, ex-SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri tells CNBC-TV18.He says the RBI should have introduced a uniform provisioning standard long back when it saw that some banks were treating a loan as NPA while some other banks were treating the same loan as a performing asset."RBI should have moved towards uniform provisioning across banks 2-3 years back," Chaudhuri says."Most of the accounts are in consortium; there are multiple lenders. So how can the same loan be standard in one place and sub-standard in the other," he says.Also read - See Sensex at 29K by Dec 2016; no Fed rate hike: BNP Paribas12:00 pm Market Check

Equity benchmarks as well as broader markets continued to consolidate today after rising sharply in previous two consecutive sessions. The Sensex declined 5.44 points to 23643.78 and the Nifty slipped 3.15 points to 7188.60.

Select banks and auto stocks gained while FMCG, pharma and HDFC group stocks were under pressure.

Amit Rathi, MD at Anand Rathi financial services says, the Nifty looks close to its bottom and it may see 15-20 percent upside over the next year to around 8000 levels.

Punjab National Bank gained nearly 5 percent on a media report that the bank may consider selling stake in subsidiaries for raising funds. However, oil marketing companies saw selling pressure with BPCL down 3 percent.