The stock market in Saudi Arabia shed more than nine per cent of its value on Saturday and closed at its lowest level in almost five years after crude oil prices closed below $50 on Friday.
The Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI) plunged 9.2 per cent to close at 4,431.57 points, the lowest since January 2004, with all sectors ending in the red.
The leading petrochemicals and banking sectors slid 9.85 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively, while telecoms plunged 9.9 per cent.
Many companies closed down 10 per cent -- the maximum allowed daily price change -- while most other shares lost more than nine per cent of their value.
The SABIC petrochemicals giant closed the day down 9.89 per cent, while the main telecoms operator, Saudi Telecom, fell 10 per cent. Shares in Etihad Etisalat mobile phone company were also down 9.88 per cent.
Leading SAMBA Financial Group and al-Rajhi Bank dropped 9.64 per cent and 9.9 per cent respectively.
Kingdom Holding, which is 94-per cent-owned by the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, dropped 9.67 per cent, a few days after Alwaleed said he was planning to increase his stake in the weakening Citigroup to 5.0 per cent.
The construction sector lost 9.47 per cent of its value, while real estate developers slid 7.84 per cent, as the Gulf realty sector began to see prices softening after rocketing over the past few years.
The New York benchmark contract for light sweet crude for January delivery dropped as low as $48.25 a barrel on Friday, less than one third of the benchmark's record highs above $147 in July.
Both light sweet crude and Brent North Sea crude closed below $50 on Friday, when the Saudi market is closed.
The slide in the largest Arab bourse, the only stock market to operate on Saturday, brings its losses this year to 60 per cent. TASI ended last week's trading down 11 per cent. It has shed almost 20 per cent in the past two weeks.
Confidence in the Saudi market, like in fellow Gulf bourses, appears to be faltering due to investors' fear that the impact of the global financial meltdown on their respective economies is not yet over.
The seven bourses of the oil-rich region have shed about $350 billion of their market value in the past seven weeks and as much as half a trillion dollars since the start of the year.
Governments meanwhile are coming forward to the rescue of the slumping markets with both Kuwait and Oman setting up special funds to buy stocks.