Activity on the Lebanese stock market portrayed mixed results during the fifth month of 2024 with volume traded decreasing by 32.75% month-on-month to 495,504 shares, compared to 736,801 shares in April and value traded rising by 38.10% to $25.23 million, from around $18.27 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of real estate sector stocks (69.94% of total number of shares traded) followed by banking (26.44%) and industry & trading (3.62%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies dropped by 0.65% in May to $17.13 billion and came in 9.54% lower year-on-year when compared to the $18.93 billion reading reported in May 2023. The monthly decrease in the market capitalization owes to the contraction in the prices of heavy market capitalization-weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” shares (3.25% monthly decrease) and Solidere “B” shares (3.80% monthly drop) which wiped out the appreciation in the price of Byblos Bank listed shares (28.85% monthly increase).

On an annual basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE fell by 81.36% in the first five months of 2024 to 5.16 million shares while the value of shares traded increased by 30.28% to $225.74 million. As far as trading multiples are concerned, the weighted average Price to Book Value (P/BV) multiple of listed stocks ended the last trading day of May lower at 5.479x from 5.631x in April, noting that it stood at 6.744x in May 2023 at a time when the prices of Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $84.60 and $86.50 respectively, compared to closing prices of $70.05 for Solidere “A” shares and $69.70 for “Solidere “B” shares as at end of May 2024.

Overall, trading activity grew thinner on a monthly basis as portrayed by the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) which fell to 0.03% in May 2024, down from 0.04% in April. Similarly, the turnover ratio decreased to 0.26% during the first five months of this year, compared to 1.41% in the same period last year.