BEIRUT: Figures released by the Beirut Stock Exchange indicate that total trading volume reached 94.9 million shares in the first 10 months of 2009, a decrease of 3.2 percent year-on-year. While aggregate turnover amounted to $882.3 million, down 45 percent from a turnover of $1.6 billion in the same period last year, as reported by Lebanon This Week, the economic publication of the Byblos Bank Group. 

Market capitalization rose by 7.8 percent to $12.6 billion year-on-year, of which 62.8 percent was in banking stocks, 34.4 percent in Solidere stocks, 2.2 percent in industrial stocks, 0.3 percent in trading stocks and 0.3 percent in funds. The market liquidity ratio was 7 percent, down from 13.7 percent in the same period of 2008. 

Bank stocks accounted for 69.6 percent of aggregate trading volume in the first 10 months of 2009, followed by Solidere’s stocks with 29.9 percent and industrial stocks with 0.4 percent. – The Daily Star