Saudi stocks took another steep decline of approximately three percent on Monday.

The benchmark Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) opened on a largely negative note and finally lost 250 points, finishing at 8,106.8.

Among market cap indices, Micro Cap was a significant decliner with 3.59 percent negative change. Sectoral indices trimmed 3,677 points on aggregate basis.

Insurance, Construction, Petrochemical Industries and Transport sectors recorded the biggest losses, going down within the range of 4-to-5 percent.

Real Estate Development sector suffered least losses comparatively, down 1.5 percent to close at 5,795.67 points.

The market breadth confirmed a bearish momentum, as out of 163 stocks traded Monday only 4 including Allied Cooperative Insurance Group (+9.53 percent) managed for gains. Interestingly, the company volume went 3.6 times high over its 50-day average.

Middle East Specialized Cables Co. and Yanbu National Petrochemical Company showing excessive losses of 9.8 percent became the major decliners at Tadawul. The share price of Saudi Fisheries Co. dived (-5.07 percent) to a fresh 3-year low of SR 25.1 before closing at SR 25.47.

The market leader SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.) fell 4.58 percent to SR 79.55 but pumping SR 472.8 million topped the liquidity chart.

Another heavyweight National Commercial Bank depreciated by 3.44 percent, closing at SR 53.98.

Market activity remained a little low as compared to previous day; turnover went down by 28 percent on volume basis and 12.2 percent in terms of liquidity.

Roughly 265 million shares worth SR 6.1 billion changed hands on the Saudi stock market. Overall turnover also went below the level of 50-day average.

Most of the trading was concentrated in Dar Alarkan Real Estate and Saudi Mobile Telecom-munications Co. (Zain), which jointly liquidated one-fourth of the market volume.