Figures released by the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) indicate that the trading volume reached 185,805,126 shares in the first five months of 2019, constituting an increase of 3.5 times from 52,743,268 shares traded in the same period last year; while aggregate turnover amounted to $793.8m, up by 2.1 times from a turnover of $386.6m in the first five months of 2018. The surge in the trading volume and turnover is mostly due to a block trade of the common shares of a listed bank. The trade consisted of 119,924,761 shares exchanged for a total of $557.7m in February 2019.

Market capitalization regressed by 22.4% from the end of May 2018 to $8.51bn, with banking stocks accounting for 86.1% of the total, followed by real estate equities (9.9%), industrial shares (3.6%) and trading firms' equities (0.4%). The market liquidity ratio was 9.3% in the covered period compared to 3.5% in the first five months of 2018. 

Banking stocks accounted for 98.3% of the aggregate trading volume in the first five months of 2019, followed by real estate equities with 1.7% and industrial shares with 0.03%. Also, banking stocks accounted for 97.6% of the aggregate value of shares traded, followed by real estate equities with 2.4% and industrial stocks with 0.1%. The average daily traded volume for the period was 1.9 million shares for an average daily value of $8.2m. The figures reflect a year-on-year increase of 3.6 times in average volume, and an annual rise of 2.1 times in the average value in the first five months of the year. In parallel, the Capital Markets Authority's (CMA) Market Value-Weighted Index for stocks traded on the BSE declined by 21% in the first five months of 2019, while the CMA's Banks Market Value-Weighted Index regressed by 10.4% in the covered period.