Activity on the Lebanese stock market was stronger during the month of December 2021, with volume traded rising to 1,283,538 shares, compared to 978,219 shares in November. Similarly, value traded increased by 43.62% month-on-month to $22.00 million, from $15.32 million in November. Trades mainly consisted of real estate (52.75%), banking (46.80%) and industry & trading (0.45%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies rose by 2.53% month-on-month to just below $10.61 billion and came in 57.78% higher year-on-year from $6.72 billion in December 2020. The monthly increase in the market capitalization mainly owes to the sizeable appreciation in the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” stocks which rallied by 5.66% and 9.35% respectively during the month of December.

On a cumulative basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE plunged by 69.90% year-on-year to around 29.62 million shares during the year 2021 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, soared by 82.49% in 2021 to about $354.13 million, mainly buoyed by the sharp corrections in the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares which ended the year up at $32.65 and $33.32 respectively. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) multiple of listed stocks ended the last month of 2021 higher at 1.931x from 1.887x in November, noting it leveled at 1.074x in December 2020.

Overall, trading activity was stronger in December 2021, as evidenced by the rise in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.07%, up from 0.05% in November. On a cumulative basis, however, the turnover ratio stood at a meager 1.50% in 2021, compared to 5.06% in 2020 as investors remained on the sidelines awaiting some glimmer of hope regarding Lebanon’s economic reform journey.