Activity on the Beirut Stock Exchange was weak during the fifth month of 2026 with the number of shares changing hands decreasing to 228,555 shares from 326,058 shares a month earlier and value traded decreasing by 68.83% to $5.45 million from around $17.49 million in April. The sluggish activity can in part be attributed to the lower number of trading days in May as a result of the Adha holidays. Trades mainly consisted of banking sector stocks (69.96% of total number of shares traded) followed by real estate (29.53%) and industry & trading (0.51%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies dropped by 2.85% in May to $17.92 billion, noting that it came in 13.21% lower year-on-year when benchmarked to the $20.64 billion reading recorded at end of May 2025. The monthly decrease in the market capitalization is attributed to the contraction in the prices of heavy market-capitalization weighted stocks namely Solidere “A” (3.94% monthly drop), BLOM Bank listed shares (8.33% monthly decrease) and Bank Audi listed shares (15.61% monthly drop) which outweighed the appreciation in the price of Solidere “B” (1.21% monthly increase).

On an annual basis, the number of shares traded on the BSE rose exponentially to 13.66 million shares YTD May 2026 from around 7.75 million shares in the same period in 2025 with traded value soaring by 20.15% to $155.72 million from just above $129.60 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 May 2026 lower at 5.654x compared to 5.718x in April, noting that it stood at 6.625x at end of May 2025 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $83.55 and $82.75 respectively compared to closing prices of $70.65 for Solidere “A” shares and $71.00 for “Solidere “B” shares at end of May 2026.

Overall, trading activity grew thinner in May 2026 as evidenced by the drop in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.01%, down from 0.02% a month before. Conversely, the turnover ratio increased to 0.70% as at the end of the first five months of 2026, compared to 0.40% in the same period in 2025.