The results of the Byblos Bank/AUB Consumer Confidence Index for the third quarter of 2018 show that the Index decreased by 5.7% in July from the preceding month, and was nearly unchanged in August and September 2018. The Index averaged 75.3 in the third quarter of 2018, constituting a marginal increase of 1.5% from 74.2 in the second quarter of the year. In addition, the Byblos Bank/AUB Present Situation Index averaged 66 in the third quarter of 2018 and decreased by 2.3% from the preceding quarter, while the Byblos Bank/AUB Expectations Index averaged 81.4 and grew by 3.6% from the second quarter of 2018. Further, the average monthly score of the Index in the third quarter of 2018 was 29% lower than the quarterly peak of 105.8 registered in the fourth quarter of 2008, and remained 22.1% below the annual peak of 96.7 reached in full year 2009. 

The ongoing delays in the formation of a new government, following the May 2018 parliamentary elections, led to the stagnation of consumer sentiment in Lebanon during the third quarter of the year and sapped any momentum in confidence that the elections generated. Lebanese citizens had high expectations following the elections that the various political parties would quickly form a government and implement concrete measures to improve their quality of living and economic well-being, as they were led to believe that changing the electoral law would improve the performance of politicians and would result in better governance. Instead, citizens discovered that the political behavior of most parties hardly changed after the elections, which led to lost opportunities for the Lebanese economy and triggered rumors about the stability of the Lebanese pound and the state of public finances. 

The third-quarter results show that 11.5% of the Lebanese polled in the third quarter of 2018 expected their financial conditions to improve in the coming six months, nearly unchanged from 11.9% in the second quarter of the year. In parallel, 58.1% of respondents in the covered quarter believed that their financial situation will deteriorate and 28.2% forecast their financial condition to remain the same in the next six months. In addition, 9.9% of the Lebanese surveyed in September 2018 expected business conditions in Lebanon to improve in the coming six months compared to 11.2% in June 2018, while 67.4% of respondents anticipated business conditions to deteriorate, relative to 67.8% in June 2018.