The Saudi stock market continued its downward slide, slipping 2.16 percent Wednesday.

After a steep decline of 2.34 percent earlier, the benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) spending entire session in the downward territory finished 168.8 points lower to 7,662.96.

The TASI trimmed its year-to-date gains to 12.67 percent.

Sectoral indices all witnessed a negative change, shedding an aggregate of 2,571.8 points.

Agriculture & Food Industries suffered the greatest amount of damages, turning down by 3.92 percent and closing at 8,083.40. Tourism, Retail, Transport and Real Estate followed it, falling 3.77 percent, 3.69 percent, 3.46 percent and 3.31 percent respectively.

Top ten heavyweights closed lower from previous day's level, where Al-Rajhi Bank decreasing by 2.26 percent, Kingdom Holding 2.06 percent and market leader SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) 1.3 percent.

The top five most active stocks also closed in red, with Aljazira Takaful Taawuni Company going down by 5.79 percent, Dar Al-Arkan Real Estate 4.22 percent and Emaar the Economic City 3.39 percent.

The market breadth confirmed a bearish momentum, as out of 157 stocks traded yesterday only 7 were able to close higher.

Al-Ahlia Insurance has been showing a volatile performance for the previous few days, flip-flopping in the top and worst positions consecutively. Again the company with an increment of 7.43 percent remained at top, closing at SR44.8.

On the contrary, Arabian Shield Cooperative Insurance recorded the biggest losses, showing a reduction of SR2.9 or 6.42 percent.

Tadawul volume went down by 19.3 percent and traded 219.6 million shares as compared to previous day’s 272.2 million shares. But still it was 5.6 percent greater than 50-day average of 208 million shares.