Activity on the Lebanese stock market rose markedly during the sixth month of 2023 with volume traded increasing by 41.50% month-on-month to 1,157,356 shares, compared to 817,904 shares in May and value traded more than doubling to $63.99 million, from $29.12 million a month earlier. Said large increases in volume and value traded may be in part attributed to the block trades on Solidere “A” and “B” stocks which involved some 123,245 and 319,148 shares respectively. Trades mainly consisted of real estate (74.84%) stocks followed by banking stocks (25.01%). The market capitalization of listed companies decreased by 6.61% month-on-month to around $17.68 billion yet came in 23.24% higher year-on-year when compared to the $14.35 billion reading reported in June 2022. The monthly drop in the market capitalization owes to the contraction in the prices of heavy market capitalization-weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” (8.51% monthly decrease), Solidere “B” (13.29% monthly drop), and BLOM Bank GDRs (9.64% monthly contraction).

On an annual basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE came in more than 3 times higher than the level reported in the first half of 2022 with the value of shares traded rising by 22.32% over the same period. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) multiple of listed stocks ended the sixth month of 2023 lower at 6.074x from 6.744x in May, noting that it stood at 4.387x in the same month in 2022 at a time when the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $59.35 and $59.95 respectively, compared to closing prices of $77.40 and $75.00 as at end of June 2023.

Overall, trading activity grew stronger in June 2023 as evidenced by the rise in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.06%, up from 0.04% a month earlier. Similarly, the turnover ratio increased to 1.47% during the first half of 2023 compared to 0.45% in the same period last year.