Activity on the Lebanese stock market improved during the month of October 2024 notwithstanding the effect of the escalating hostilities on all economic sectors. Volume traded increased by 16.82% in October to 914,295 shares, compared to 782,658 shares in September while value traded plummeted by 43.86% to $24.46 million, from around $43.58 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of banking stocks (72.60% of total number of shares traded) followed by real estate (27.01%) and industry & trading (0.40%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies rose by 3.25% in October to $22.04 billion and came in 35.11% higher year-on-year when compared to the $16.31 billion reading reported in October 2023. The monthly increase in the market capitalization owes to the appreciation in the prices of heavy market capitalization-weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” shares (4.67% monthly increase), Solidere “B” shares (2.48% monthly rise), Byblos Bank listed shares (29.23% monthly increase), and Holcim Liban shares (3.40% monthly increase).

On an annual basis nevertheless, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE fell by 72.97% in the first ten months of 2024 to 9.22 million shares with the value of shares traded decreasing by 12.06% to $418.72 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 October higher at 7.406x up from 7.131x in September, noting that it stood at 5.190x in October 2023 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $66.65 and $66.35 respectively, compared to closing prices of $95.25 for Solidere “A” shares and $97.00 for “Solidere “B” shares as at end of October 2024.

Overall, trading dynamics improved in October as portrayed by the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) which rose to 0.05%, up from 0.04% in September. The turnover ratio, however, decreased to 0.47% during the first ten months of this year, compared to 1.73% in the same period last year.