Despite an upward jump (+1.43 percent) after the opening bell, the benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) finished with a sharp decline of 153.3 points on Wednesday.

At one stage, the index dipped 5.24 percent but finally lost 1.81 percent, closing at 8,333.3. It showed a negative change of 2.37 percent for the year 2014.

Sectoral indices all closed in downward territory, trimming an aggregate of 2,623 points for the entire day.

Multi-Investment suffered worst of all sectors, showing a reduction of more than six percent to close the day at 3,679.06. Tourism and Industrial Investment sectors followed it, slipping more than three percent.

The total number of falling stocks exceeded to the total number of rising stocks by a huge margin of 137 to 21.

Saudi Public Transport Co. suffered the greatest amount of damages, turning down 9.94 percent to close the day at SR 24.0. Five stocks including Tourism Enterprises Co. (down 7.48 percent) hit a fresh 52-week low.

Kingdom holding reflecting excessive losses of 7.89 percent became the major decliner among heavyweight equities.

The bellwether SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) fell 2.37 percent.

On the other positive side, the Mediterranean and Gulf Insurance showed the best performance, surging by 8.16 percent to close at SR50.08.

Dar Al-Arkan Real Estate with trades over 64 million shares topped the volume chart, a relative market share of 13.6 percent.

Saudi Arabian mining company pumped more liquidity into the market by contributing SR948.2 million, which is approximately 8.5 percent of overall market turnover.

The company volume (31.1 million shares) also went 5.8 times high over its 50-day average.

Market activity was high; specifically 469.9 million shares worth SR11.2 billion were transacted at Tadawul. This turnover reflects a daily increase of 19.5 percent on volume basis and 17.2 percent in terms of liquidity.7