Activity on the Lebanese stock market improved markedly during the eighth month of 2023 amid a block trade involving some 100,000 shares of Solidere “A” stocks. In details, volume traded increased by 152.03% month-on-month to 1,893,327 shares, compared to 751,237 shares in July and value traded rose by 74.14% to $46.95 million, from around $26.96 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of banking sector (69.77% of total number of shares traded) stocks followed by real estate (30.13%) and industry & trading (0.10%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies increased by 1.71% in August to around $18.72 billion and by 40.13% year-on-year when compared to the $13.36 billion reading reported in August 2022. The monthly rise in the market capitalization owes to the appreciation in the prices of heavy market capitalization-weighted stocks, namely Bank Audi listed shares (23.04% monthly increase) and BLOM Bank listed shares (19.52% monthly rally).

On an annual basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE nearly tripled when compared to the level reported in the first eight months of 2022 reaching 31.5 million shares with the value of shares traded rising by 11.99% over the same period to $311.17 million. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) multiple of listed stocks ended the eighth month of 2023 lower at 6.157x from 6.258x in July, noting that it stood at 3.986x in August 2022 at a time when the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $54.25 and $54.15 respectively, compared to closing prices of $78.95 for Solidere “A” shares and $77.45 for “Solidere “B” shares as at end of August 2023.

Overall, trading activity was stronger in August 2023 as evidenced by the rise in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.10%, up from 0.04% a month earlier. Similarly, the turnover ratio increased to 1.61% during the first eight months of 2023 compared to 0.56% in the same period last year.