Iran Market Pulse: Saturday Morning, 10 Mordad 1405 (1 August 2026); Equal-Weight Index Hits a Record as 36 of 40 Industries Close the Week Green

The Tehran Stock Exchange reopens at 9am today, Saturday 10 Mordad 1405 (1 August 2026), after a two-day closure, and it ended last week on a contradiction that few people are looking at. The headline index, the number everyone quotes, finished Wednesday 7 Mordad's session at 5,075,099 points, still 4.45% below its record of 5,311,524 points set on 16 Tir 1405 (7 July 2026). Yet in that same session the equal-weight index closed at 1,432,808 points, the highest reading in its history, and according to SENA, the Iranian capital market news agency, in the week ending 9 Mordad the indices of 36 of the 40 active industry groups rose, with 9 industry indices reaching their all-time highs on the final trading day. The picture is clear: the market is setting records, just not in the number that makes the headline.

Today's snapshot

Exchange figures refer to the close of the week's final session (Wednesday 7 Mordad 1405 / 29 July 2026). Domestic cash rates refer to the last business day (Thursday 8 Mordad / 30 July), except Tether, silver and exchange-traded gold, which were also updated this morning. Global rates refer to the early hours and morning of Saturday 10 Mordad.

Today's headlines

• Per SENA (7 Mordad 1405), in the week ending 9 Mordad the indices of 36 of the 40 active industry groups rose and only 4 fell; the strongest weekly returns went to publishing and printing, other mining, and rubber and plastics.
• Per Donya-e-Eqtesad (issue 6621, 10 Mordad 1405), the performance gap between the two main equity gauges has reached 13 percentage points; the paper headlined the week "small stocks overtake the market's giants".
• Per SENA (7 Mordad 1405), retail and TAL turnover passed 27 trillion tomans in the week's final session, after exceeding 30 trillion tomans on Tuesday 6 Mordad.
• Per Bourse News (10 Mordad 1405), Iran's natural gas exports to Türkiye rose 34% in the first half of 2026.
• Per SENA (7 Mordad 1405), in the month to 31 Tir 1405 commodity-backed funds covering gold, silver and saffron delivered average returns of 14.28% to 18.62%, topping the return table for all exchange investment vehicles.
• Per Donya-e-Eqtesad (10 Mordad 1405), automakers' four-month record shows a 25% drop in output.

Stocks: the record you cannot see in the headline index

Understanding last week means putting two numbers side by side. Based on Sahmino's price series, the headline index moved from 4,884,001 points at the close of Wednesday 31 Tir to 5,075,099 points at the close of Wednesday 7 Mordad, a gain of 191,098 points or 3.91% in one week. Over the same span the equal-weight index went from 1,356,064 to 1,432,808 points, a gain of 5.66%. The performance gap between the two over one week is 1.75 percentage points, and measured from the 28 Tir trough the headline index is up 7.25% against the equal-weight index's 10.13%, a 2.88 percentage point spread across eight sessions.

The difference between the two indices is technical but its consequence is entirely practical. The headline index is capitalisation weighted, meaning each company influences it in proportion to its market value, so a handful of petrochemical, metals and banking giants determine its fate. The equal-weight index gives every listed symbol the same weight, so it effectively reports the condition of the average share in the market. When the equal-weight index sets a record while the headline index stays 4.45% below its own peak, it means this week's advance was broad and widely distributed but has not yet reached the largest companies. SENA's report confirms the same thing from another angle: the strongest weekly returns went not to metals and refiners but to publishing and printing, other mining, and rubber and plastics, three groups none of which carries heavy weight in the headline index.

The money side tells the same story. SENA reported retail and TAL turnover above 27 trillion tomans on Wednesday and above 30 trillion tomans on Tuesday, and Donya-e-Eqtesad wrote of continued retail money inflows. Turnover at this level, alongside the breadth of the advance, usually signals that new buyers have entered rather than money simply rotating among a few large symbols. One further number completes the frame: per SENA, the Capital Market Development Fund's cumulative retail purchases have passed 41 trillion tomans across the 46 business days since the equity market reopened.

Some distance is warranted here. Wednesday's own session was red: the headline index fell 33,905 points, or 0.66%, retreating from Tuesday's 5,109,004. In its analysis titled "the bourse in limbo", Donya-e-Eqtesad wrote that in recent trading the market has responded more to political risk than to fundamental variables, and that some of the recent gains have been taken. So the accurate picture is this: a strong, broad week whose final day paused for breath. The headline index's 20-day realised volatility is 1.46%, a figure showing this market has not yet settled. This is observation, not forecast.

At the company level, per Bourse News, Entekhab Electronic Group recognised earnings per share of 85 rials in its unaudited six-month statement to 31 Khordad 1405, 98% higher than the same period a year earlier. Separately, the project manager for the refurbishment of Fajr Energy Persian Gulf's power plants announced a plan to bring 2,100 megawatts of capacity back over the next 18 months.

Currency: the only rate that stayed alive through the closure went up

On the last business day, Thursday 8 Mordad 1405, the free-market dollar closed at an ask of 192,400 tomans, down 0.57%, while the Exchange Centre remittance dollar was recorded at an ask of 152,786 tomans, up 0.24%. The gap between the two rates is 39,614 tomans, meaning the free rate sits 25.9% above the official one. In today's issue, Donya-e-Eqtesad described the week as "a quiet week for currency and gold under the shadow of rising tension" and the dollar's move as a "soft climb".

Today's real point lies elsewhere. Tether is the only currency rate that trades through the Thursday and Friday closure, and as of 07:59 this morning it stands at 194,486 tomans, up 0.46%. That is 2,086 tomans above the last ask for cash dollars. On Friday morning that gap was around 700 tomans, which we recorded in our Friday morning report; across two holiday days the spread has roughly tripled.

The mechanism is simple. When the cash market is shut, any demand that cannot wait moves towards Tether, and because Tether supply is thinner at the weekend, that same demand pushes the rate higher. So this number should be read as a thermometer, not a reference rate: it says demand pressure accumulated over the closure, but only today's board will show its exact size. A one percent difference between Tether and cash is not a large number in this market's history; what matters is its direction and its speed.

Gold and coin: the domestic board frozen, the ounce barely moving

Spot gold traded at $4,045.17 as of 00:31 this morning, down a negligible 0.05%, ranging between $4,044.29 and $4,052.35; both Sahmino's live feed and TGJU show the same figure. Spot silver is at $57.63, down 0.27%, platinum at $1,639.94 and palladium at $1,264.91. After Friday's broad decline, which we covered in our Friday midday report, precious metals are effectively standing still this morning. Per Bourse News, despite Friday's fall gold is on course to record its first monthly gain in five months.

The domestic board shows the same numbers as Thursday: 18-karat gold at 18,665,400 tomans per gram, mesghal at 80,849,000 tomans, cash melted gold at 80,875,000 tomans and the Emami coin at 188,010,000 tomans. Two rates were alive this morning and both were close to flat: 999 silver per gram at 379,570 tomans as of 06:57, down 0.39%, and exchange-traded 18-karat gold at 19,768,100 tomans as of 07:59, up 0.03%.

The notable figure in this section is the coin premium. The Emami coin premium is recorded at 3,278,000 tomans, after shrinking 52.23% on Thursday. The market therefore enters a new week with the coin's mark-up over the value of the gold inside it far narrower than at recent peaks. The mechanism is clear: the premium expands when buyers expect a jump, and when the global ounce and the dollar rate both calm down at once, the incentive to pay a mark-up fades. To gauge the scale, a longer-term anchor helps: per SENA, commodity-backed funds covering gold, silver and saffron returned between 14.28% and 18.62% in the month to 31 Tir, topping the return table for all exchange vehicles. Gold, in other words, was last month's big winner; today's calm is a pause in that trend, not its end.

Crypto: a week in which almost nothing happened

Bitcoin traded at $63,042 as of 07:58 this morning, up 0.08%, and Ethereum at $1,869.77, up 0.07%. Both are effectively unchanged, although Bitcoin is about one and a half percent below Friday midday's level of around $64,000.

This market's historical anchor says more than the daily tick: per Bourse News, Bitcoin now trades 49% below its all-time high. For an Iranian investor that number carries two messages. First, much of crypto's rial-denominated gain in recent months came from the rising dollar rate, not from a rise in the dollar price. Second, the domestic Tether rate, unlike Bitcoin, is effectively a currency instrument rather than a bet on the global crypto market.

Steel, cars and building materials

No new steel rates were recorded during the closure; size 10 A3 rebar from Aryan Foulad stands at 69,550 tomans per kilogram ex-works and size 14 from the same producer at 68,180 tomans. Per Bourse News, the Iran Mercantile Exchange hosted around 500,000 tonnes of goods and the cement floor led trading volume, a point that connects directly to the building materials section.

In materials, Tehran Cement's type 2 bulk Portland cement is recorded at 4,014,000 tomans per tonne and Abyek Cement's at 3,673,000 tomans (9 Mordad). The cement floor leading volume on the commodity exchange usually indicates active construction demand, but given energy and freight cost pressure, its effect on retail rates shows up with a lag of several weeks.

In cars, today's most important news is a quantity rather than a price: per Donya-e-Eqtesad (10 Mordad 1405), automakers' four-month record shows a 25% drop in output, and the paper wrote of "the output puzzle after the price correction". On the price board, the Peugeot 207 automatic with a glass roof stands at 2.75 billion tomans and the manual Peugeot 207 with an ESP engine at 1.67 billion tomans. Falling output in a market whose demand has not fallen is the same mechanism that has kept the gap between factory and market prices open for years.

Regional and global backdrop

Brent crude stood at $87.93 as of 04:51 this morning and is effectively unchanged. That level is about 2.8% above Friday morning's reading of around $85.50. Per Bourse News, oil prices fell in Friday's session but closed July higher. The channel to Tehran runs both ways: more foreign currency revenue against higher freight and insurance costs.

In West Asia, today's most important economic news concerns Türkiye: per Bourse News (10 Mordad 1405), Iran's natural gas exports to Türkiye rose 34% in the first half of 2026. The channel to Tehran is direct, since export gas is one of the country's few non-oil foreign currency revenue streams. The dollar against the Turkish lira was recorded at 47.52 as of 19:10 on 9 Mordad.

In East Asia, per Donya-e-Eqtesad (10 Mordad 1405), persistently high oil prices have forced Beijing to pass part of that pressure through to its domestic market, and fuel prices in China rose again. China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil, and any change in its domestic pricing policy affects import demand. The dollar against the yuan stands at 6.7551 (9 Mordad, 10:37).

In the Persian Gulf, per Donya-e-Eqtesad (10 Mordad 1405), representatives of 43 countries have joined Saudi Arabia's initiative to form a maritime coalition in the Red Sea; last week's open file has now entered its operational phase. The same source reported a projectile striking a tanker off the coast of Oman. Both stories converge on a single variable: the insurance cost of an oil cargo, which bears directly on the discount at which Iranian oil sells.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve held its policy rate in the 3.50% to 3.75% range at its 7 Mordad meeting while three committee members sought an increase, and the market is pricing roughly a 63% probability of a hike at the September meeting. The euro against the dollar stands at 1.1531 and the dollar against the yen at 157.45 (10 Mordad, 00:31). The expectation of higher rates is the same force that has capped gold's advance, and it explains why the ounce has not moved this morning.

The takeaway

Today belongs to stocks, not to the dollar and not to gold. The currency and gold markets closed the week quietly and the domestic board has not moved in two days, but the equity market came through a week in which 36 of 40 industries turned green, 9 industries reached record highs and the equal-weight index set a record. The verdict of the day: this week's advance was broad, not heavy, which is to say it happened in small and mid-sized shares rather than in the giants. If you remember only one thing today, let it be this: the headline index is still 4.45% below its own record, yet the average share in the market is standing at the highest point in its history, and both of those statements are true.

What to watch today

• Today's 9am reopening, and whether the equal-weight index consolidates its new record or Wednesday's profit-taking continues.
• The free-market dollar rate in the market's first hours, measured against this morning's Tether reading of 194,486 tomans.
• The OPEC+ monthly meeting tomorrow, Sunday 11 Mordad, which sets Shahrivar production levels; the previous session on 14 Tir approved a 188,000 barrel-per-day increase for Mordad.
• The exchange closure on Tuesday 13 Mordad for Arbaeen; this week has only four trading sessions.
• Iran Mercantile Exchange offerings, particularly the cement floor, which led trading volume last week.
• The Sahmino market events calendar for assemblies and scheduled data in the week ahead.