Activity on the Beirut Stock Exchange was stronger during the tenth month of 2026 with the number of shares changing hands rising to 920,330 shares and value traded dropping by 6.85% to $17.75 million from around $19.06 million in September. Trades mainly consisted of banking sector stocks (80.06% of total number of shares traded) and real estate (19.94%) stocks. The market capitalization of listed companies dropped by 4.03% in October to $16.79 billion, noting that it came in 18.49% lower year-on-year when benchmarked to the $20.60 billion reading recorded at end of October 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” (0.58% monthly drop), Solidere “B” (3.35% monthly decline), Ciments Libanais (10.00% monthly decrease), and Bank Audi listed shares (22.87% monthly drop), among others.

On an annual basis, the number of shares traded on the BSE fell by 13.63% to 16.27 million shares as at the end of the first ten months of 2026 from around 18.83 million shares in the same period in 2025 with traded value decreasing by 12.60% to $241.60 million from just below $276.44 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 October 2026 lower at 5.240 compared to 5.258x in September, noting that it stood at 6.126x at end of October 2025 at a time when the prices of heavy market-cap weighted Solidere “A” and “B” shares were trading at $78.55 and $79.00 respectively compared to closing prices of $68.90 for Solidere “A” shares and $67.75 for “Solidere “B” shares at end of October 2026.

Overall, trading activity was more dynamic in October 2026 as evidenced by the increase in the turnover ratio (being the number of shares traded divided by total listed shares) to 0.05%, up from 0.03% a month earlier. Conversely, the turnover ratio dropped to 0.83% as at the end of the first ten months of 2026, compared to 0.96% in the same period in 2025.