Activity on the Lebanese stock market were dull during the month of September 2024 with volume traded decreasing by 18.49% month-on-month to 782,658 shares, compared to 960,183 shares in August and value traded dropping by 28.11% to $43.58 million, from around $60.61 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of real estate stocks (62.39% of total number of shares traded) followed by banking (37.53%) and industry & trading (0.08%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies rose by 10.97% in September to $21.35 billion and came in 16.87% higher year-on-year when compared to the $18.27 billion reading reported in September 2023. The monthly increase in the market capitalization owes to the appreciation in the prices of heavy market capitalization-weighted stocks, namely BLOM Bank listed shares (141.38% monthly increase), Solidere “B” shares (11.35% monthly rise), Solidere “A” shares (8.14% monthly increase), Bank Audi listed shares (5.26% monthly rise), and Byblos Bank listed shares (3.17% monthly increase).

On an annual basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE fell by 74.53% in the first nine months of 2024 to 8.30 million shares while the value of shares traded increased by 1.98% to $394.25 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 September higher at 7.131x up from 6.838x in August, noting that it stood at 5.995x in September 2023 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $76.05 and $77.40 respectively, compared to closing prices of $91.00 for Solidere “A” shares and $94.65 for “Solidere “B” shares as at end of September 2024.

Overall, trading dynamics were thinner in September as portrayed by the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) which fell to 0.04%, down from 0.05% in August. The turnover ratio, moreover, decreased to 0.42% during the first nine months of this year, compared to 1.65% in the same period last year.