Activity on the Lebanese stock market portrayed mixed results during the ninth month of 2023 with volume traded decreasing by 41.76% month-on-month to 1,102,733 shares, compared to 1,893,327 shares in August and value traded rising by 60.64% to $75.42 million, from around $46.95 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of real estate stocks (89.20% of total number of shares traded) followed by banking (10.28%) and industry & trading (0.52%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies fell by 2.41% in September to around $18.27 billion yet rose by 42.58% year-on-year when compared to the $12.81 billion reading reported in September 2022. The monthly drop in the market capitalization owes to the contraction in the prices of heavy market capitalization-weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” (3.67% monthly drop), Bank Audi listed shares (6.38% monthly decrease) and Bank Audi GDRs (17.14% monthly drop).

On an annual basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE more than doubled when compared to the level reported in the first nine months of 2022 reaching 32.61 million shares with the value of shares traded rising by 23.95% over the same period to $386.58 million. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) multiple of listed stocks ended the ninth month of 2023 lower at 5.995x from 6.157x in August, noting that it stood at 3.761x in September 2022 at a time when the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $51.05 and $51.80 respectively, compared to closing prices of $76.05 for Solidere “A” shares and $77.40 for “Solidere “B” shares as at end of September 2023.

Overall, trading activity grew thinner in September 2023 as evidenced by the drop in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.06%, down from 0.10% a month earlier. Conversely, the turnover ratio increased to 1.66% during the first nine months of 2023 compared to 0.80% in the same period last year.