Activity on the Beirut Stock Exchange lost some ground during the eighth month of 2026 with the number of shares changing hands decreasing to 305,182 shares from 363,261 shares a month earlier and value traded dropping by 34.12% to $12.23 million from around $18.57 million in July. Trades mainly consisted of real estate sector stocks (52.82% of total number of shares traded) followed by banking (47.17%) and industry & trading (0.01%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies dropped by 1.26% in August to just below $17.80 billion, noting that it came in 9.38% lower year-on-year when benchmarked to the $19.64 billion reading recorded at end of August 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” (4.76% monthly drop), and Ciments Libanais (6.34% monthly decrease), which altogether outweighed the appreciation in the prices of Solidere “B” (0.07% monthly increase), BLOM Bank listed shares (1.08% monthly rise), and Bank Audi listed shares (34.01% monthly hike).

On an annual basis, the number of shares traded on the BSE rose by 21.36% to 14.68 million shares in the first eight months of 2026 from around 12.10 million shares in the same period in 2025 with traded value increasing by 6.45% to $204.79 million from just above $192.38 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 2026 lower at 5.528 compared to 5.755x in July, noting that it stood at 6.029x at end of August 2025 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $77.20 and $75.40 respectively compared to closing prices of $70.00 for Solidere “A” shares and $70.05 for “Solidere “B” shares at end of August 2026.

Overall, trading activity remained almost flat in August 2026, with the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) standing at 0.02%. The turnover ratio, however, increased to 0.75% as at the end of the first eight months of 2026, compared to 0.62% in the same period in 2025.