Activity on the Lebanese stock market fell markedly during the third month of 2026 with the number of shares changing hands decreasing to 681,770 shares in March 2026 compared to 872,907 shares a month earlier and value traded concurrently dropping by 72.50% to $7.46 million from around $27.12 million in February. The sluggish activity can be attributed to the recent turmoil that followed the eruption of the war in the Middle East since the beginning of the month not to mention the Fitr holiday. Trades mainly consisted of banking sector stocks (86.67% of total number of shares traded) followed by real estate (13.07%) and industry & trading (0.25%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies fell by 3.59% in March to $18.26 billion, noting that it came in 22.39% lower year-on-year when compared to the $23.53 billion reading recorded at end of March 2025. The monthly drop in the market capitalization is attributed to the contraction in the prices of heavy market-capitalization weighted stocks, namely Solidere “A” (1.72% monthly decrease), Solidere “B” (6.00% monthly decline), Bank Audi listed shares (8.13% monthly drop), and Holcim Liban shares (12.61% monthly decrease).

On an annual basis, the number of shares traded on the BSE rose exponentially to 13.11 million shares in Q1-2026 from around 3.46 million shares in the same quarter last year with traded value soaring by 90.61% to $132.78 million from $69.66 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 March 2026 lower at 5.871x compared to 6.070x in February, noting that it stood at 7.849x in March 2025 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $95.80 and $99.55 respectively, compared to closing prices of $74.50 for Solidere “A” shares and $70.50 for “Solidere “B” shares at end of March 2026.

Overall, trading activity grew thinner in March 2026 as evidenced by the drop in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.03%, down from 0.04% a month earlier. Conversely, the turnover ratio increased to 0.67% during the first quarter of this year, compared to 0.18% in the same quarter last year.