TOKYO (AFX-ASIA) - Major banks were mixed, with some rebounding lightly from recent sharp falls, after more news of plans to increase non-performing loan disposals, dealers said. At 2.20 pm, Asahi Bank was down 15 at 98 yen, a fall of 13.27 pct, but off a low of 76 yen, after large-lot selling by foreign investors pushed it below the key psychological level of 100 yen. Asahi Bank president Yukio Yanase said today's sharp declines in the bank's share price seems to be due to selling of large lots by foreign investors, followed by further offloading by speculative investors. The price does not reflect the bank's real financial health, he added. "Considering the bank's PER (price-earnings ratio) of 7.56 times and PBR (price-to-book ratio) of 0.28 times, our shares are oversold to an abnormal extent," Yanase said. "I have heard some foreign investors sold our stock in large lots, which was followed by other speculative investors," he told a briefing after the company's shares fell 17 to 96 yen in the morning. "Overall, the bank sector is under pressure because the market believes the disposal of bad loans is not going forward as expected," Yanase said. "We are planning to weather the situation by announcing more reductions in our bad loans step-by-step at the proper time though we have already disposed of 60 bln yen in the fiscal first half," he said. The bank will announce details of the increased disposals on Nov 26. The news on Asahi follows reports yesterday that Mizuho will increase year to March non-performing loan disposals to 1.8 trln yen from the 1.0 trln forecast earlier. The reports hit the banking sector hard. Mizuho was up 3,000 at 318,000 yen, after yesterday's 28,000 yen decline. ING Baring senior financials analyst James Fiorillo said other banks are likely to announce greater bad-loan reductions following the reported plans by Mizuho, which is a sector leader, but this may hurt sentiment. "The market remains extremely sensitive to news on NPL growth and disposal and, lacking a government plan for dealing with the NPL issue, may not be in the mood to greet increases in credit cost forecasts warmly," Fiorillo said. "We expect other banks to make similar announcements and that most of the news will be disheartening," he added. "The main focus of first-half earnings announcements will be ... NPL growth levels and full year earnings estimates by individual banks." MTFG was up 27,000 at 855,000 and UFJ down 8,000 at 453,000.