RIYADH (AFP) - The stock market in oil-rich Saudi Araba shed more than nine percent of its value on Saturday and closed at its lowest level in almost five years after crude oil prices closed below 50 dollars on Friday. The Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI) plunged 9.2 percent 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 percent and 9.1 percent respectively, while telecoms plunged 9.9 percent. Many companies closed down 10 percent " the maximum allowed daily price change " while most other shares lost more than nine percent of their value. The SABIC petrochemicals giant closed the day down 9.89 percent, while the main telecoms operator, Saudi Telecom, fell 10 percent. Shares in Etihad Etisalat mobile phone company were also down 9.88 percent. Leading SAMBA Financial Group and al-Rajhi Bank dropped 9.64 percent and 9.9 percent respectively. Kingdom Holding, which is 94-percent-owned by the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, dropped 9.67 percent, a few days after Alwaleed said he was planning to increase his stake in the weakening Citigroup to 5.0 percent. Construction sector lost 9.47 percent of its value, while real estate developers slid 7.84 percent, as the Gulf realty sector began to see prices softening after rocketing over the past few years. The New York benchmark contract for light sweed crude for January delivery dropped as low as 48.25 dollars a barrel on Friday, less than one third of the benchmark's record highs above 147 dollars in July. Both light sweet crude and Brent North Sea crude closed below 50 dollars 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 percent. TASI ended last week's trading down 11 percent. It has shed almost 20 percent 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 dollars 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.