Activity on the Lebanese stock market improved significantly during the ninth month of the year 2020, more than a month after the Beirut Port explosion. In details, volume traded on the BSE skyrocketed by 532.95% to 5,962,048 shares during the month of September, from 941,951 shares in August. Similarly, value traded soared by 150.30% month-on-month to $26.01 million, from $10.39 million in August. Trades mainly comprised banking sector stocks, which controlled 76.04% of the total traded volume, followed by real estate stocks (23.96%) with no activity on industry & trading stocks being recorded. The market capitalization of listed stocks rose by 0.72% month-on-month to around $6.25 billion, yet remained much lower than the circa $7.86 billion reading recorded in September of last year.

On a cumulative basis, however, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE plunged by 51.93% year-on-year to around 92.55 million shares during the first nine months of the current year partly owing to the lockdown that accompanied the COVID-19 outbreak and the crippled economic activity amid the ongoing political turmoil, with value traded sinking by 83.20% over the same period to about $140.87 million. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) of listed stocks ended the ninth month of 2020 higher at 0.865x, compared to 0.849x in August mainly owing to the significant increase in the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares.

Overall, trading activity was more robust in September 2020, as evidenced by the rise in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.31%, up from 0.05% in August when the BSE closed after the Beirut port blast. The turnover ratio, however, reached 4.76% on a cumulative basis by end of the first nine months of this year, compared to 10.96% in the same period last year as a result of the economic meltdown and lack of political consensus on Lebanon’s reform journey.