Iran Market Pulse: Sunday Midday, August 2, 2026; TEDPIX Climbs 96,000 Points and Overtakes the Equal-Weight Index After Four Sessions

Lead

Halfway through today's session, the Tehran Stock Exchange did something it had not managed for a month and a half. By 10:59 a.m. on Sunday, 11 Mordad 1405 (2 August 2026), the headline index (TEDPIX) stood at 5,151,197 points, up 96,411 points, or 1.91 percent above Saturday's close. Khabar Online reported the index at 5,153,688 points, up 98,902, at 10:10 a.m. the same morning, and Bourse News wrote that the index had risen more than 110,000 points in the first 15 minutes of trading.

What matters more than the size of the gain is its direction. The equal-weight index was up 1.42 percent at the same moment, so TEDPIX is ahead of it by 0.49 percentage points as of this hour: the first time after four consecutive sessions in which small and mid-cap shares led. On the other side, the markets that served as a war-risk shelter last week retreated: traded 18-karat gold fell 1.47 percent and gold fund units slipped about half a percent. One exception remained: the free-market dollar set a fresh record this very morning.

Today's snapshot

Today's headlines

• According to Khabar Online at 10:10 a.m. on Sunday, 11 Mordad 1405 (2 August 2026), capital-market trading opened with buy flow dominating sell flow and both main Tehran Stock Exchange gauges in positive territory.
• According to the newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad the same day, the free-market dollar set a fresh record and entered the 194,000-toman channel, while Tether first rose into the upper half of the 195,000-toman channel and then, after fresh claims about a postponement of the military strike, retreated to around 190,000 tomans.
• According to Eghtesad Online on Sunday, 11 Mordad, the United States embassies in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates warned of a possible unexpected escalation of hostilities and asked American citizens to be ready to leave the region.
• According to SENA, the value of exchange-traded fund trading on Saturday, 10 Mordad (1 August 2026) reached 51.7 trillion tomans, with a net 900 billion tomans of retail money entering that market; fixed-income funds accounted for 36.7 trillion tomans.
• According to Eghtesad Online, the quarter-coin premium reached 7,391,000 tomans on Sunday, 11 Mordad, more than twice the Emami coin premium of 3,522,000 tomans.

Stocks

Today's session opened green from the first minute. According to Bourse News, the headline index rose more than 110,000 points in the first 15 minutes, meaning the market started with a price gap rather than a gradual climb. By 10:59 a.m. part of that opening jump had been given back and the gain settled at 96,411 points. The Iran Farabourse index also rose 626 points, or 1.53 percent, to 41,563.

Now the most important figure of the session: the gap between TEDPIX and the equal-weight index. For four consecutive sessions the equal-weight index led, and on Saturday, 10 Mordad, TEDPIX fell 0.4 percent while the equal-weight index posted a record close. Today that ratio inverted: 1.91 percent against 1.42 percent. Analysis: when the weighted index moves ahead of the equal-weight index, it means demand this time is concentrated in large companies rather than small caps, and the large companies of the Tehran exchange are precisely those that carried the deepest war-risk discount in their prices.

A historical anchor shows the jump better. Mehdi Souri, a capital-market analyst, said at a conference reported by Mehr News Agency on Saturday, 10 Mordad 1405 (1 August 2026), that TEDPIX had delivered almost zero return since 25 Khordad 1405 (15 June 2026), when it reached the five-million-point area, while over the same stretch the dollar rate went from about 150,000 tomans to about 190,000 tomans. In other words, the stock market had fallen roughly 48 days behind the currency market, and today's gain is the first large step toward closing that gap.

There is data on the money side too, although the exact retail and institutional figures for today's session have not been released as of this hour. According to Bourse News, in the week ending 9 Mordad (31 July 2026) retail investors were net buyers on four of five days and more than 6,300 billion tomans of retail money entered the exchange, but on the final trading day, Saturday 10 Mordad, money left: according to EcoIran more than 1,300 billion tomans of retail money exited the equity market. Khabar Online wrote today that buyers have returned to the stock market. According to SENA, the number of active shareholder codes on the Tehran exchange passed 490,000 in the week ending 9 Mordad.

One structural item also arrived from the Securities and Exchange Organization today: according to Bourse News, a unified directive on capital increases from asset revaluation was issued, a matter that bears directly on how large companies value their assets in an inflationary period.

Currency

The currency market has two simultaneous stories today, and both are true. On the banknote side, the ask rate for the free-market dollar stood at 194,100 tomans and the bid at 192,150 tomans as of 11:05 a.m. on Sunday, 11 Mordad; Eghtesad Online recorded the same figures at 09:52 the same day, and the newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad called it a fresh record and an entry into the 194,000-toman channel. The last figure recorded in Sahmino's price board on Saturday evening, 10 Mordad, was 193,700 tomans.

On the Tether side the direction is the opposite. Tether stood at 193,298 tomans on Sahmino's board as of 09:21 on Sunday, down 1.04 percent, and at 191,900 tomans on Alanchand as of 11:05, a range of 191,000 to 193,000 tomans. Donya-e-Eqtesad described today's Tether path this way: it first rose into the upper half of the 195,000-toman channel, then returned to around 190,000 tomans after fresh claims about a postponement of the military strike. Analysis: Tether usually reacts to news earlier than the cash market, so today's divergence means the de-escalation news has been priced into the instant market but has not yet reached the banknote board.

The official rate barely moved. The ask remittance rate of the Iran Currency and Gold Exchange Centre stood at 153,338 tomans on Sahmino's board as of 08:16 and at 152,977 tomans according to Eghtesad Online at 09:52, both up 0.24 percent on the previous day. Against a free-market rate of 194,100 tomans, the gap between the two markets is about 41,000 tomans, close to 26 percent, the same figure Eghtesad Online today called an alarm bell for the currency market. In the same area, according to Eghtesad Online the Central Bank announced that about 35 percent of unfulfilled export currency commitments relate to rented trading cards.

Gold and coin

The gold market was the session's relative loser today. Traded 18-karat gold (ask) stood at 18,494,100 tomans as of 09:22 on Sunday, 11 Mordad, down 1.47 percent, and the bid at 18,312,500 tomans, down 1.5 percent. On the TGJU board, 18-karat gold was recorded at 18,698,000 tomans, unchanged from the previous day, while Eghtesad Online reported 18,666,700 tomans.

The clearest signal, though, was on the exchange, where pricing is live: Lotus gold fund units traded at 131,955 tomans as of 11:00 today, down 0.50 percent, and Jam-e Tala units at 1,671.7 tomans, down 0.49 percent. So in the very hour TEDPIX was rising 1.91 percent, the exchange-listed gold instruments were red. Analysis: this is exactly what a rotation of money from shelter into risk assets looks like, and because both trade on the same board at the same hour, it is today's most directly comparable gauge.

A number that got less attention: according to Eghtesad Online, the quarter-coin premium today was 7,391,000 tomans, while the Emami coin premium was 3,522,000 tomans and the Bahar Azadi coin premium only 888,000 tomans. The same figures are recorded in Sahmino's database. A premium on small fractional pieces higher than on the full coin usually signals small-investor demand against limited supply of those pieces. The Emami coin traded in the 187 million to 188 million toman range today.

Crypto

The global crypto market is green today. Bitcoin stood at 63,527 dollars on Sahmino's board as of 09:14 on Sunday, 11 Mordad, up 1.52 percent, while Alanchand showed 63,493 dollars and Ethereum at 1,877 dollars at 11:05. Tether Gold, which acts as a 24-hour proxy for the ounce, traded at 4,049.4 dollars as of 09:15, up 0.15 percent.

The combination of those two numbers is today's crypto point: the global price rose while the rial price of Tether fell. That means a Tether holder in Iran lost rial value this morning even though the global market was positive. The reason is the second layer of domestic crypto pricing: the dollar rate. On the sidelines, according to Bourse News, Tether raised its gold reserves to more than 146 tonnes in the second quarter of 2026 and recorded 1.5 billion dollars in net operating profit.

Iron and steel

Factory prices moved today, unlike the past few days. Grade A3 10-millimetre rebar from Aryan Foulad was recorded at 70,450 tomans per kilogram on 11 Mordad 1405 (2 August 2026), against 69,550 tomans for the same product on 10 Mordad: a rise of 900 tomans, or 1.29 percent. The same mill's grade A2 10-millimetre rebar stood at 70,360 tomans and its grade A2 12-millimetre rebar at 69,180 tomans.

The driver here should be sought in two places: the currency rate, which set a fresh record this very day, and energy costs. According to Bourse News, Ardeshir Saadmohammadi, chief executive of Mines and Metals Development Investment, said on Saturday, 10 Mordad, that the profit margin of Iran's steel industry had fallen from about 36 percent in 1400 to about 12 percent in 1404, partly because of higher energy carrier prices. In the commodity market, according to SENA, 3,214,000 tonnes of goods are being offered in the Iran Mercantile Exchange trading halls today, and physical-market trading volume grew 24.4 percent in the week ending 9 Mordad.

Cars

The car market had a supply story today rather than a price story. According to Eghtesad Online at 10:03 a.m. on Sunday, 11 Mordad 1405 (2 August 2026), an immediate sale of the 2025 Kia Sportage opened at a firm price of 87,622 million rials, equal to 8,762 million tomans, with delivery within a maximum of 20 days.

In the domestic market, prices recorded on 11 Mordad 1405 show the Peugeot 207 automatic with the TU5P engine at 2,550 million tomans and the manual Peugeot 207 with the TU3 engine at 1,670 million tomans. The notable point is the same one seen yesterday: on days when the dollar sets records, the car market does not follow, a sign that effective purchasing power rather than currency expectations sets this market.

Building materials

Physical materials prices were unchanged today: bulk Type 2 Portland cement from Abyek stood at 3,593,000 tomans per tonne on 11 Mordad 1405, a 50-kilogram bag of Tehran cement at 291,000 tomans and a 50-kilogram bag of Abyek cement at 289,000 tomans, all at the same level as the previous day.

The sector's exchange-listed instruments, however, ran hot. As of 11:00 on Sunday, 11 Mordad, units of the Simano fund traded at 3,542 tomans, up 2.6 percent, Simana at 3,297 tomans, up 2.55 percent, and Simania at 3,098 tomans, up 2.03 percent, meaning the capital market moved faster than the physical market for the materials group.

Regional and global backdrop

Global markets are closed today, Sunday, so the latest reference figures are those from the end of last week: Brent crude at 87.93 dollars and spot gold at 4,045 dollars (the last prices recorded at the close of the trading week). According to Reuters, republished by Bourse News, global gold fell on Friday as the dollar recovered but closed July with its first monthly gain in five months. The channel to Tehran: as long as the ounce is flat, almost every move in the domestic gold price comes from the currency rate and the risk premium, which is exactly what we saw this morning.

The main driver today, though, is political and cuts both ways. According to Al Jazeera, Trump announced on Saturday evening, 10 Mordad, that he had cancelled the planned strike and that agreement had been reached on the perimeters of a deal including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz; and according to the newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad citing Axios, Qatari mediators spoke with Abbas Araghchi and Steve Witkoff on Saturday about the same matter. On the opposite side and on the same day, according to Eghtesad Online, United States embassies in ten countries of West Asia and North Africa warned of an unexpected escalation of hostilities. The channel to Tehran is clear: the stock market has priced the first scenario today, and the banknote market has not yet discarded the second.

On regional rates, as of 11:05 on Sunday, 11 Mordad, one dollar bought 47.5 Turkish lira, 6.75 Chinese yuan, 79.3 Russian roubles and 1,519 Iraqi dinars, while in the Tehran market the UAE dirham stood at 52,470 tomans, the Turkish lira at 4,150 tomans and the yuan at 28,840 tomans. These rates have a direct use for Iran: the dirham and the lira are the two main settlement channels for informal trade, and the Iraqi dinar is the reference rate for cross-border trade in the west of the country.

The takeaway

The midday verdict is blunt: the winner of this session was the equity market, not gold. TEDPIX rose 1.91 percent and moved ahead of the equal-weight index after four sessions, while gold funds were red in the very same hour; money rotated out of the war-risk shelter and into large exchange-listed assets. One thing to remember, though: the free-market dollar set a fresh record this same morning and its gap with the official rate stayed close to 26 percent. The equity market has priced peace, the banknote market has not; and until those two stories become one, today's stock jump is a catch-up on lost ground, not a declaration that the risk is over.

What to watch today

• The 12:30 close: whether TEDPIX holds the 96,411-point gain to the final bell, or gives part of it back as it did with the 110,000-point jump of the first 15 minutes.
• The final figure for retail money entering or leaving today, after more than 1,300 billion tomans left on Saturday, 10 Mordad.
• The banknote rate in the afternoon hours: whether the fall in Tether finally reaches the cash dollar, or the 194,100-toman record holds.
• How gold funds behave through the close; continued red means the rotation of money is still running.
• Any fresh news on the status of the Strait of Hormuz and the regional security warnings, which pointed in two opposite directions today.
• Today's Iran Mercantile Exchange offerings, at 3,214,000 tonnes, and their effect on steel and cement names.
• Follow scheduled events ahead in the Sahmino market calendar.