Iran Market Pulse: Thursday Midday, August 6, 2026; Global Gold Hits Seven-Week High, Tops $4,250

Lead

On Thursday, 15 Mordad 1405 (August 6, 2026), the first of the Tehran Stock Exchange's two weekly closed days, markets were dominated by reports that Iran and the United States are nearing an agreement to reopen part of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Global spot gold extended its rally for a fourth straight session, climbing to $4,262.17 an ounce today; according to Trading Economics, gold has gained nearly 6% since the start of this week and reached its highest level in seven weeks (since June 18). At the same time, Brent crude has fallen about 10% this week, and Tehran's TEDPIX benchmark set a fresh all-time record on Wednesday, crossing 5.4 million points for the first time. In the free currency market, the dollar retreated nearly 2% over the week to the 186,000 to 188,000 toman range.

Today's Snapshot

Asset	Price	As of
Free market USD	About 186,000 to 187,800 tomans	11:05 today (Alanchand)
Official/Agreed (Exchange Center) USD	154,220 tomans (sell)	09:17 today
18-karat gold (per gram)	About 18,456,000 to 18,562,000 tomans	Last evening to today
Emami gold coin	About 184,000,000 to 184,500,000 tomans	Last evening to today
Global spot gold	$4,262.17	Today
Bitcoin	$64,833	10:25 today
Tether (toman)	About 187,800 tomans	10:26 today
TEDPIX (Tehran benchmark index)	5,407,902 points (record, Wednesday close)	14 Mordad (Aug 5)
Brent crude	$79.75	10:25 today

Today's Top Headlines

• Ecoiran, citing Axios (Thursday, 15 Mordad): Iran and the US are on the verge of an agreement to reopen a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, which could be announced "soon"; Tehran stresses full reopening depends on a change in Washington's behavior.
• Al Jazeera (Wednesday, 14 Mordad): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said progress has been made in talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and he hopes a deal will be finalized "very shortly."
• Mehr News (Thursday, 15 Mordad): Iran's central bank raised the legal reserve ratio for all banks another 0.75 percentage points in a second phase; the cumulative increase since the circular took effect has reached 1.5 percentage points.
• Bourse News (Thursday, 15 Mordad): Iran's capital market financing in the first four months of the current year topped 443 trillion tomans.
• Al Jazeera (Wednesday, 14 Mordad): The US and Japan, in their first joint intervention since 2011, pulled the yen back from a 40-year low of 163 to 157 per dollar.

Currency

The free currency market extended its decline today, still driven by Hormuz-related speculation. According to Ecoiran, the free market dollar fell about 4,000 tomans (1.9%) from Monday's close to around 188,200 tomans, and extended its slide later in the day after the US Treasury announced Wednesday evening it had lifted sanctions on several airlines. According to Alanchand, in trading at 11:05 today the dollar traded between 185,900 and 187,800 tomans, with tether at a floor of 187,000 tomans; the euro traded around 217,000 tomans and the UAE dirham around 51,400 tomans. Separately, the official dollar draft rate at Iran's Currency and Gold Exchange Center rose about 100 tomans to between 153,700 and 154,220 tomans; the gap between the two rates remains above 30,000 tomans. For live rates, see Sahmino's currency price page.

On monetary policy, Iran's central bank on Thursday raised the legal reserve ratio for all banks and credit institutions by another 0.75 percentage points in the second phase of implementing circular No. 21563/05, bringing the cumulative increase to 1.5 percentage points; a banking expert told Mehr News the move limits banks' lending capacity and the pace of liquidity growth. The central bank also unveiled a new "special investment forex time deposit certificate," an instrument meant to encourage people to deposit foreign currency in the banking system rather than hold it outside banks, which, if well received, could absorb some free market demand.

Gold and Coin

Global gold posted its fourth straight rising session this morning, reaching $4,262.17 an ounce, up 0.35% from the previous day and, per Trading Economics data, up nearly 6% since the start of this week. The rally is being driven by a combination of the Hormuz-related news, which has eased inflation pressure by pulling oil lower, and weak US jobs data: the ADP report showed the US private sector added just 44,000 jobs in July, the weakest reading since January. Global silver is trading around $61.61 an ounce, after touching near $62 on Wednesday.

The domestic picture looks different, however: according to Ecoiran, reduced precautionary demand following the Hormuz news put gold funds and the domestic market under selling pressure. 18-karat gold traded today around 18,456,000 tomans per gram and melted gold (mesghal) around 79,970,000 tomans (Sahmino's own internal data for last evening recorded a similar figure, 18,562,000 tomans per gram of 18-karat gold). The Emami coin traded around 184,500,000 tomans, the half coin at 94,100,000 tomans, the quarter coin at 52,100,000 tomans and the one-gram coin at 27,000,000 tomans. According to Ecoiran, both the Emami coin and melted gold traded today slightly below their intrinsic value (based on gold weight and the dollar rate), meaning their usual premium has, at least for today, effectively turned into a discount. More detail on Sahmino's gold price page.

Stocks

The Tehran Stock Exchange is closed today, but the week it just closed out was one of the fastest moving in recent memory. Per Sahmino's own recorded data, TEDPIX rose from 5,154,059 points at Sunday's close (11 Mordad) to 5,277,353 on Monday and then 5,407,902 at Wednesday's close (14 Mordad), a gain of nearly 5% in three sessions and the first time the index crossed 5.4 million points. The equal-weight index also hit a historic high the same day, up 36,742 points on Wednesday to 1,534,561. According to Donya-e-Eqtesad and Ecoiran, more than 12 trillion tomans in fresh capital flowed into the stock market over just two trading days.

Retail buying was on an upward trend too: net individual buying rose from about 8.1 trillion tomans' worth of shares on Sunday to 19.2 trillion on Monday, 20.1 trillion on Tuesday and 21.9 trillion on Wednesday, while institutions were net sellers all four days. According to Bourse News, capital market financing in the first four months of the current year (through the end of Tir) topped 443 trillion tomans, of which 127.4 trillion came from capital increases and IPOs and 307.6 trillion from debt securities issuance. The main driver behind the rally was the combination of the retreating free market dollar and rising hopes for progress in Iran-Oman talks on the Strait of Hormuz; for more on Wednesday's session, read Wednesday's midday Market Pulse. The market reopens Saturday.

Crypto

Crypto markets were quiet today with no notable moves: bitcoin traded around $64,833, down a slight 0.22%, and ether traded around $1,913, down 0.4%. Toman-denominated tether tracked the free market dollar, trading around 187,800 tomans. Among altcoins, however, there was notable volatility: Lido DAO's token (LDO), the largest Ethereum liquid-staking platform, fell 16.31% in trading yesterday, according to Arzdigital, after the publication of a new Ethereum proposal known as EIP-8361 aimed at cutting staking rewards from 2.6% to 1.2%. On-chain data showed more than $214,000 worth of LDO flowing into exchanges, though open interest in its derivatives market also rose 14.3%, suggesting leveraged traders are active in the volatility. The broader market backdrop was shaped by Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who, citing persistent inflation pressure, said it is time to start a slow move toward raising interest rates, remarks that pushed the probability of a September Fed rate hike on the Polymarket prediction platform to 46%.

Steel

The rebar market was quiet today with no notable change. Per Sahmino data, Aryan Steel's 10mm rebar (A3 grade, ex-factory) priced at 74,090 tomans, 12mm rebar (A2/A3) around 72,820 tomans, and 14mm rebar (A3) around 72,730 tomans, all little changed from recent days. The retreating free market dollar this week has not added much upward pressure to steel producers' costs, and the market remains focused on how the Strait of Hormuz situation is resolved and its effect on export and shipping costs.

Cars

The vehicle market was also little changed today; for example, all three Saipa Pride 151 trims (SE, GX model year 1404 and GX model year 1405) were priced at roughly 1.05 billion, 1.1 billion and 1.15 billion tomans respectively. On the policy front, Mohammad Hadi Sobhanian, head of Iran's National Tax Administration, told Ecoiran today that the tax on luxury cars and homes, one of the tax bases set out in parliament's annual budget law, remains in effect this year, with parliament setting the threshold for what counts as "expensive." The remarks came as Iran Khodro's 14th sales round showed that, among 861,285 applicants for 53,900 vehicles, the odds of winning under the standard plan had fallen to just 2.22%, a sign of the continuing wide gap between supply and demand in the vehicle market.

Building Materials

The cement market was quiet today. A 50-kilogram bag of type-2 Portland cement from the Abyek brand priced at 289,000 tomans, Tehran Cement at 291,000 tomans and Saveh Cement at 260,000 tomans; bulk cement from Abyek and Tehran traded at around 3,593,000 and 3,937,000 tomans per ton respectively, little changed from recent days. Summer construction season is holding up base demand, but the absence of a fresh jump in the dollar rate has kept prices from moving much.

Regional and Global Outlook

Brent crude is trading around $79.75 today, after falling nearly 10% this week on reports that Iran and the US are nearing an agreement on a Strait of Hormuz shipping corridor; according to Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing CENTCOM, the US military claims it had, as of Wednesday, rerouted 48 commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and disabled two ships, a claim suggesting tension in the region has not fully eased despite the positive talks. The US dollar index (DXY), per Trading Economics, stood around 99.74 today, near a seven-week low, as markets have scaled back expectations for Fed rate hikes this year from two moves to one. The S&P 500 rose 1.8% on Tuesday to top 7,700 points for the first time, and the Dow Jones hit a record for a second straight day at 54,085.88; according to Al Jazeera, Palantir shares jumped 29.5% on its quarterly earnings report, and the rally continued into Wednesday's Asian session, with Tokyo's Nikkei up 3.7% and Seoul's Kospi up 3.8%.

In a rare move, the US and Japan launched their first joint intervention since the 2011 Tohoku earthquake starting last Friday to halt the yen's slide; according to Al Jazeera, the currency, which had fallen to 163 per dollar for the first time since 1986, recovered to 157 per dollar by Wednesday. Washington's main concern was the risk that Japan might sell part of its $1.114 trillion in US Treasury holdings to defend the yen. On the Russian energy front, according to Bourse News, citing Bloomberg, Russian oil refining fell in July to an average of 3.6 million barrels a day, its lowest level since 2002, a result of Ukrainian drone strikes on 18 Russian refineries that have pushed producers to export more crude oil.

Bottom Line

Today was gold's day, and Hormuz hope's day, not the dollar's. Global gold rose for a fourth straight session to a seven-week high, while that same hopeful Hormuz news pushed oil down nearly 10% this week, drove the free market dollar below 188,000 tomans, and lifted TEDPIX to a record 5,407,902 points. The one thing worth remembering from this week: when Hormuz speculation turns positive, global gold and Tehran's stock market can rise together, because each is climbing for a different reason, one as a safe haven against the region's remaining risk, the other on hope that import and export costs will fall.

What to Watch Today

• Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is scheduled to travel to Pakistan on Friday; the outcome could be worth following for diplomatic pressure over the Strait of Hormuz.
• Any official announcement on a Hormuz shipping-corridor agreement could move oil, the dollar and stocks simultaneously in the hours ahead.
• The Tehran Stock Exchange reopens Saturday, 17 Mordad; the focal point will be whether the past four days' retail buying streak continues or breaks.
• The Fed's September meeting is on the market's horizon; the Polymarket-implied probability of a hike currently stands at 46%, and any shift in Fed officials' tone could move the dollar and global gold.
• Upcoming economic events can be tracked on Sahmino's market calendar.