Activity on the Lebanese stock market dropped markedly during the tenth month of the year 2020, with the volume traded on the BSE plunging by 84.34% to 933,600 shares during the month of October, from 5,962,048 shares in September. Similarly, value traded fell by 55.45% month-on-month to $11.59 million, from $26.01 million in September. Trades mainly comprised real estate sector stocks, which controlled 76.63% of the total traded volume, followed by banking sector stocks (23.37%) with no activity on industry & trading stocks being recorded. The market capitalization of listed stocks rose by 3.16% month-on-month to around $6.45 billion, yet remained lower than the circa $7.55 billion reading recorded in October of last year.

On a cumulative basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE plunged by 52.72% year-on-year to around 93.49 million shares during the first ten 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. Value traded was no exception, sinking by 82.54% over the same period to about $152.46 million. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) of listed stocks ended the tenth month of 2020 higher at 0.901x, compared to 0.865x in September mainly owing to the significant increase in the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares.

Overall, trading activity was thinner in October 2020, as evidenced by the drop in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.05%, up from 0. 31% in September. The turnover ratio reached 4.81% on a cumulative basis by end of the first ten months of this year, compared to 11.26% in the same period last year as a result of the economic meltdown and lack of political consensus on Lebanon’s reform journey.