Activity on the Lebanese stock market fell markedly during the ninth month of 2025 with the number of shares changing hands decreasing by 23.46% month-on-month to 2,131,108 shares, compared to 2,784,318 shares in August while value traded increased by 31.92% to $29.04 million, from around $22.01 million a month earlier. Trades mainly consisted of banking stocks (85.26% of total number of shares traded) followed by real estate (11.70%) and industry & trading (3.03%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies rose by 6.55% in September to $20.93 billion, noting that it came in 1.96% lower year-on-year when compared to the $21.35 billion reading reported in September 2024. The monthly increase in the market capitalization is attributed to the upward correction in the prices of heavy market-capitalization weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” (10.17% monthly increase) and Solidere “B” (12.67% monthly rise) shares which altogether outweighed the monthly decrease in the price of Holcim Liban shares (4.00% monthly drop).

On an annual basis, the number of shares traded on the BSE rose by 71.33% in the first nine months of 2025 to 14.23 million shares while the traded value plummeted by 43.84% to $221.42 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 2025 higher at 6.784x compared to 6.029x in August, noting that it stood at 7.195x in September 2024 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $91.00 and $94.65 respectively, compared to closing prices of $85.05 for Solidere “A” shares and $84.95 for “Solidere “B” shares at end of September 2025.

Overall, trading activity grew thinner in September 2025 as evidenced by the drop in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.11%, down from 0.14% a month earlier. Conversely, the turnover ratio increased to 0.73% as at the end of the third quarter of this year, compared to 0.42% in the same period last year, reflecting a more dynamic trading stance.