Bulls and bears wrangle as The Nigerian Equities market closed the mid-week trading session on a negative note, marking the first bearish close for the year. The benchmark NGX All-Share Index (NGXASI) recorded a loss of 140 basis points during today’s session. The index decreased from 83,191.84 points to 82,024.38 points.

The day’s negative performance was attributed to investors’ profit taking activities in major stocks like UBA (-9.97%), TRANSCORP (-9.94%), ZENITHBANK (-9.93%), GTCO (-8.71%), ACCESSCORP (-6.23%), MTN (-4.41%) and 56 other stocks.

Consequently, the year-to-date return declined to 9.70%. In the same vein, the overall market capitalization declined by 1.40% to N44.86 trillion as equity investors lost N638.85 billion.

Market activity for the day was positive as volume and value traded increased by 16.42% and 2.82% to reach 1.64 billion units and N25.38 billion respectively.

Analysts anticipate an extended bearish trend as investors engage in profit-taking in the coming session.