Activity on the Lebanese stock market extended its upward streak during the eighth month of 2025 with the number of shares changing hands increasing by 161.23% month-on-month to 2,784,318 shares, compared to 1,065,838 shares in July while value traded dropped by 26.43% to $22.01 million, from around $29.92 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of banking stocks (93.49% of total number of shares traded) followed by real estate (5.80%) and industry & trading (0.71%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies dropped by 5.16% in August to $19.64 billion, noting that it came in 2.10% higher year-on-year when compared to the $19.24 billion reading reported in August 2024. The monthly decrease in the market capitalization is attributed to the correction in the prices of heavy market-capitalization weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” (8.37% monthly drop) and Solidere “B” shares (10.18% monthly decrease) which altogether the monthly increase in the price of Bank Audi listed shares (6.18% monthly rise).

On an annual basis, the number of shares changing hands on the BSE rose by 60.83% in the first eight months of 2025 to 12.10 million shares while the value of shares traded plummeted by 45.14% to $192.39 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 August 2025 lower at 6.160x compared to 6.832x in July, noting that it stood at 6.838x in August 2024 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $84.15 and $85.00 respectively, compared to closing prices of $77.20 for Solidere “A” shares and $75.40 for “Solidere “B” shares at end of August 2025.

Overall, trading activity grew stronger in August 2025 as evidenced by the rise in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.14%, up from 0.05% a month earlier. Similarly, the turnover ratio increased to 0.62% as at the end of the first eight months of this year, compared to 0.38% in the same period last year.