Activity on the Lebanese stock market was frail during the month of November 2021, with volume traded dropping to 978,219 shares, compared to 1,964,896 shares in October. Similarly, value traded fell by 28.45% month-on-month to $15.32 million, from $21.42 million in October. Trades mainly consisted of real estate (48.21%), banking (41.90%) and industry & trading (9.88%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies rose by 1.29% month-on-month to just below $10.35 billion and came in 68.65% higher year-on-year from $6.14 billion in November of last year. The monthly increase in the market capitalization mainly owes to the sizeable appreciation in the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” stocks.

On a cumulative basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE plunged by 70.15% year-on-year to around 28.34 million shares up until November owing to the partial lockdown that accompanied the COVID-19 outbreak and the paralyzed economic activity amid the prolonged political vacuum. Value traded, on the other hand, more than doubled to about $332.12 million, thanks to the significant increase in the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) multiple of listed stocks ended the eleventh month of 2021 higher at 1.887x from 1.842x in October, noting it leveled at 0.906x in November of the previous year.

Overall, trading activity was thinner in November 2021, as evidenced by the drop in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.05%, down from 0.10% in October. Similarly on a cumulative basis, the turnover ratio stood at a meager 1.44% YTD November of this year, compared to 4.88% in the same period last year as investors remained on the sidelines awaiting some glimmer of hope regarding Lebanon’s economic reform journey.