Iran Market Pulse, Sunday, September 20, 2026 Reports a Session in Which the Tehran Stock Exchange Main Index Fell 1.44 Percent and Closed Below 7.45 Million Points for the First Time Since September 14

1. Lead

Tehran's bourse opened green on Saturday, 28 Shahrivar 1405 (19 September 2026), and closed red. In our own recorded data, the Tehran Stock Exchange main index (TEDPIX) fell 108,890 points, or 1.44 percent, to 7,448,843 (Saturday, 28 Shahrivar, 13:24 Tehran time). That is the largest one session drop, in points and in percent alike, across the 20 sessions our series covers from 31 Mordad (22 August) to today; the next largest in that window was 79,962 points, or 1.21 percent, on 11 Shahrivar (2 September).

Both ends of this arithmetic come from one series and one source. The close of Wednesday, 25 Shahrivar (16 September) was 7,557,642 points, which is the index record, and the close of Saturday, 28 Shahrivar was 7,448,843 points; the difference is that same 108,890 points. And the last time this index closed below today's level was Monday, 23 Shahrivar (14 September), at 7,393,272 points, meaning one session gave back five sessions of gains. Donya-e-Eqtesad and EcoIran both reported the same 1.44 percent fall and the same 7.448 million level independently of us (28 Shahrivar), and Donya-e-Eqtesad had written in its 23 Shahrivar report that the main index lost the 7.4 million point channel in that session.

The drivers, cautiously: on the same day the free market dollar and gold rose while retail money left equities. Those are two dated facts standing side by side, not proof of causation; published analysis is carried in the relevant sections with its source named.

2. Today's Snapshot

3. Today's Headlines

• No bank took part in the 15th auction of Islamic government bonds. The auction was held on 24 Shahrivar (15 September), and of the combined offering of Arad 296, 297, 299 and 306 only 10,400 billion tomans sold, equal to 22.5 percent of the total offering and about 10 trillion tomans less than the week before. There was no demand at all for Arad 296 and 299. The yield to maturity on Arad 297 was announced at 40.61 percent. From the start of the year to 24 Shahrivar, 314,780 billion tomans of bonds have been sold, 30.5 percent of the budget ceiling (EcoIran, citing the Central Bank of Iran and Iran Farabourse, 28 Shahrivar / 19 September).
• Gold and coin rose while the coin premium narrowed. Nader Bazrafshan, head of Tehran's gold, jewellery, silver and coin union, said spot gold rose 64 dollars to 4,378 dollars, a gram of 18 carat gold rose 58,000 tomans from Thursday to 23,745,000 tomans, and the new design coin rose 5,700,000 tomans to 235,300,000 tomans, while the coin premium fell about 250,000 tomans to roughly 3,850,000 tomans (Mehr News, 28 Shahrivar / 19 September).
• Used car imports were restricted to model years 2021 to 2023. Under a notice from the Integrated Trade System, the order registration conditions for used car imports under Article 11 of the Automotive Industry Organisation Act were amended (Mehr News, 28 Shahrivar / 19 September).
• China's holdings of US Treasuries fell to 618 billion dollars, the lowest since August 2008 (Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing the US Treasury Department and the Financial Times, 28 Shahrivar / 19 September). The same day China's Commerce Ministry condemned the new US sanctions law targeting Russia and Iran (Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing Mehr News and Bloomberg, 28 Shahrivar).
• Smoke rose from a fuel depot at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport and flights were halted (Khabar Online, citing Mehr News, Al-Quds Al-Arabi and Reuters, 28 Shahrivar / 19 September).

4. Currency

The banknote market finished Saturday higher. The free market dollar stood at 230,275 tomans in our last recorded reading, Saturday 28 Shahrivar at 19:59. Donya-e-Eqtesad reported the path of the day with dates: the dollar, which had retreated to around 226,000 tomans at the end of the previous week, began Saturday's trading in the 227,000 toman range and went on to reach the 229,000 toman range (28 Shahrivar). Against our last Thursday reading of 227,900 tomans, that is 2,375 tomans higher.

The two rate gap. The remittance dollar sell rate at the Iran Currency and Gold Exchange Centre was recorded at 166,377 tomans on Saturday 28 Shahrivar at 08:17, with the buy rate at 164,879 tomans. The gap between the free rate and the remittance rate is therefore 63,898 tomans, meaning the free rate sits 38.4 percent above the administrative one. The mechanism of that gap is definitional and needs no added assumption: the free rate comes from supply and demand in the banknote market, and the remittance rate from administrative allocation for imports and specified uses. The two readings are not simultaneous, which should be kept in mind when reading the figure.

The UAE dirham, the effective rate for a large share of Iran's imports through Dubai, was recorded at 62,708 tomans on Saturday, 353 tomans above the Thursday 26 Shahrivar (17 September) reading. In global currency markets the euro stands at 1.1485 dollars, sterling at 1.3394 dollars and the dollar at 156.88 yen (Saturday 28 Shahrivar, early hours).

5. Gold and Coin

The domestic gold market closed Saturday brighter. 18 carat gold was recorded at 23,878,100 tomans per gram, 515,100 tomans above the Thursday 26 Shahrivar (17 September) reading; the mesghal at 103,431,000 tomans, 2,233,000 tomans higher; and the Emami coin at 237,480,000 tomans, 5,495,000 tomans higher. This morning 18 carat traded gold opened 20,000 tomans higher at 23,659,100 tomans (Sunday 29 Shahrivar, 07:44).

One conflict of accounts, stated plainly. Tehran's gold, jewellery, silver and coin union quoted the same day's 18 carat gram at 23,745,000 tomans and the new design coin at 235,300,000 tomans, and Donya-e-Eqtesad wrote that the coin traded in the region of 236 million tomans. So the coin's range across the day's reports is 235.3 to 237.5 million tomans and the 18 carat gram's range is 23.75 to 23.88 million tomans; our figure is a 19:59 reading and the union's is an official midday announcement. Both are dated and neither invalidates the other.

The share that is not gold is thin. The Emami coin premium in our reading stood at 4,439,700 tomans, equal to 1.87 percent of the coin price; the union reported the same premium at roughly 3,850,000 tomans and 250,000 tomans narrower than Thursday. The premium is by definition the distance between the coin's market price and the value of the metal struck into it, and the coin's intrinsic value in our reading was 233,040,300 tomans. The Bahar Azadi coin premium is 4,614,000 tomans and the quarter coin premium 5,105,000 tomans (same reading).

The external driver is dated: spot gold stood at 4,383.45 dollars in our reading and at 4,378 dollars, up 64 dollars, in the Tehran union's announcement. Silver went the other way: spot silver fell about 2.28 dollars to 62.28 dollars and a gram of domestic silver traded at 488,000 tomans (Mehr News, citing the union, 28 Shahrivar). On the exchange board, gold funds closed green while the whole market was red: the Tala fund 2.92 percent higher at 166,250 tomans and Jam Tala 2.22 percent higher at 2,128 tomans (Saturday 28 Shahrivar).

6. Bourse and Farabourse

The Tehran Stock Exchange and the Farabourse are two separate markets with two separate indices, and Saturday's session took both down, though not equally. The TEDPIX main index fell 108,890 points, or 1.44 percent, to close at 7,448,843. The equal weight index fell 29,410 points, or 1.46 percent, to close at 1,986,770, losing the 2 million point channel. The Farabourse main index, a separate index on a separate market, fell 626 points, or 1.08 percent, to 57,567. Donya-e-Eqtesad reported the same three directions independently and added that 75 percent of the market's symbols closed in the red and only 25 percent rose (28 Shahrivar).

And here is where today's headline comes from. Saturday's close is the first close below 7.45 million points since Monday, 23 Shahrivar (14 September); the last close beneath today's level was that same 23 Shahrivar, at 7,393,272 points. Between those two dates the main index had two strong sessions, 128,712 points on 24 Shahrivar (15 September) and 35,679 points on 25 Shahrivar (16 September), and a single session gave both back. Donya-e-Eqtesad had written in its 23 Shahrivar report that the main index lost the 7.4 million point channel in that session and that the equal weight index broke below the 2 million point level, which confirms both ends of this arithmetic independently of our data.

The board, symbol by symbol, and the shape of the day shows here. In our board events data all three heavyweight symbols of the session opened higher: Mobarakeh Steel (Foulad) 2.8 percent, Khouzestan Steel (Fakhouz) 2.72 percent and Pardis Petrochemical (Shapdis) 2.94 percent above the previous close. The end of the day took two paths. Foulad closed 1.12 percent lower at 328 tomans, giving back its positive open in full. Fakhouz closed 2.85 percent lower at 297 tomans, with a sell queue of 40,143,018 shares at that price, and its volume ran 7.63 times the twenty session average, at 6.37 billion shares. On the other side, Shapdis closed 2.94 percent higher at 1,367 tomans, with a buy queue of 4,570,190 shares, a third consecutive higher close, volume at 3.44 times the twenty session average and its highest close since 27 Khordad 1405 (17 June 2026). The Base Market, the thinner board inside the Farabourse with wider price bands and more frequent halts, recorded no notable event in our data.

Money flow and turnover. Total board turnover was 48,923 billion tomans in 1,146,056 trades on the Tehran Stock Exchange and 84,129 billion tomans in 851,970 trades on the Farabourse. Donya-e-Eqtesad reported retail equity turnover at around 46,000 billion tomans and retail money outflow at around 6,100 billion tomans (28 Shahrivar). One explicit caveat: our own market wide individual and institutional flow series has not recorded a row for 28 Shahrivar as of writing, so the outflow figure in this report comes from Donya-e-Eqtesad and not from our data, and our latest recorded row is for 24 Shahrivar.

That the Farabourse again out traded the bourse is explained by one symbol. Akhza 2104, a government debt instrument, alone turned over 8,849 billion tomans, or 10.5 percent of the Farabourse's entire turnover that day; and the five most traded Farabourse symbols, all of them government debt paper, together made up 38.7 percent of that market's turnover. Set that beside the result of the 15th auction carried in the headlines above: the government sold only 22.5 percent of its offering on 24 Shahrivar with no bank taking part, while the yield to maturity on Arad 297 was announced at 40.61 percent. The mechanism can be stated without added assumption: when government paper yielding around 40 percent is available in the secondary market, every rial going into equities is measured against that published return; exactly what share of Saturday's selling came through that channel is not something this data proves.

7. Crypto

Bitcoin spent the night lower. Bitcoin stands at 80,452 dollars in this morning's reading, Sunday 29 Shahrivar at 07:42, down 884 dollars or 1.10 percent. Bitcoin Cash fell further, 3.75 percent lower at 245.63 dollars, and Tether Gold at 4,370.73 dollars is effectively level with spot gold.

The domestic rate, which is the operative figure for an Iranian buyer, stands at 228,077 tomans this morning, 409 tomans and 0.18 percent lower. Read its ratio to the free market dollar carefully: Tether now sits 2,198 tomans below the last recorded free dollar close, or 0.95 percent lower, but the two readings are not simultaneous, since the Tether rate is from this morning and the banknote rate is from last night. A difference in kind always applies too: bitcoin is measured in dollars, while the toman Tether rate carries the exchange rate inside it.

Away from prices, one institutional event was recorded: South Korea's police said they had identified 26 Polymarket users through analysis of blockchain records, an example of public ledger transparency turning into an instrument of prosecution (Arzdigital, citing South Korea's National Police Agency, 28 Shahrivar / 19 September).

8. Iron and Steel

The rebar family has taken no new settlement on the Iran Mercantile Exchange since Wednesday 25 Shahrivar (16 September), so our latest recorded settlement is from that day: rebar A3 sizes 14 to 20 at 85,126 tomans per kilogram and sizes 22 to 32 at 84,862 tomans. An absent IME settlement means no trading in that family, not a stale feed.

The gap between the official board and the mill rate held where it was. Arian Foulad's recorded rates for Saturday 28 Shahrivar are: rebar 14 A3 at 93,090 tomans, 12 A3 at 93,910 tomans, 10 A3 at 94,450 tomans, 12 A2 at 93,180 tomans and 10 A2 at 94,360 tomans. For rebar 14, the gap between the mill rate and the IME settlement for the same size is 7,964 tomans, or 9.36 percent, unchanged from yesterday's report, because neither end of the calculation took a new reading. Globally, Shanghai rebar stands at 3,099 yuan per tonne (Friday 27 Shahrivar / 18 September, 19:55).

On the board, the metals names were heavy on Saturday: Foulad closed 1.12 percent and Fakhouz 2.85 percent lower, though both had opened higher. Together the two made up 4,081 billion tomans of bourse board turnover.

9. Cars

Car market prices did not move in the Saturday 28 Shahrivar reading. The Saipa Pride 151 GX model year 1405 was recorded at 1,270,000,000 tomans, the same model year 1404 at 1,220,000,000 tomans and the Pride 151 SE model year 1404 at 1,170,000,000 tomans, all three unchanged from the previous reading.

The sector's news was policy, and it has two sides. On one side, used car imports were restricted to model years 2021 to 2023 under amended order registration conditions in the Integrated Trade System (Mehr News, 28 Shahrivar). On the other, Saipa announced a new extraordinary sale without a lottery, starting 30 Shahrivar 1405 (21 September), offering the Quick and the Sahand (EcoIran, 28 Shahrivar). A lottery free offering and a tightening of imports are two pressures in opposite directions on the market margin, and what their net effect turns out to be is something the coming days' readings will show; we have no figure for it today.

10. Building Materials

Cement took a new settlement on Saturday 28 Shahrivar and came down slightly. Type 2 (42.5) bulk cement settled at a volume weighted average of 26,192 rials per kilogram, equal to 2,619.2 tomans, 17.4 tomans and 0.66 percent below the 2,636.6 toman settlement of 25 Shahrivar. Type 1 (42.5) bulk settled at 2,544.6 tomans and type 5 (42.5) bulk at 2,813.1 tomans. The standing caveat applies: an IME settlement is that day's volume weighted average across every producer that sold, so a small decline can reflect a change in the mix of sellers rather than a trend.

And the gap between the settlement and the market rate is what reaches a building site. Abyek Cement's type 2 bulk portland cement was recorded in the same 28 Shahrivar reading at 3,230,000 tomans per tonne, that is 3,230 tomans per kilogram. The gap between the two is 610.8 tomans per kilogram, meaning the market rate sits 23.3 percent above the same day's IME settlement. The bagged row confirms the same ratio: Abyek's 50 kilogram bag costs 227,000 tomans, equal to 4,540 tomans per kilogram, against the IME bagged settlement of 3,737 tomans on 23 Shahrivar (14 September), which is 21.5 percent higher. Two routes to a similar ratio make the figure safer to read.

On the board, the cement funds moved as one and all closed at the band floor: Simana 3 percent lower at 3,983 tomans, the Ciman fund 3 percent lower at 1,032.5 tomans, Simano 3 percent lower at 4,205.1 tomans and Simania 3 percent lower at 4,062 tomans (Saturday 28 Shahrivar).

11. Regional and Global View

In energy, WTI crude stands at 96.08 dollars in the early Saturday 28 Shahrivar reading, down 5.83 dollars or 5.72 percent, and Brent at 103.87 dollars with no newer reading. EcoIran also named falling oil prices as one of the drivers of gold's rise in its Friday report (27 Shahrivar / 18 September). The channel to Tehran is direct: the oil price moves both export revenue and the freight and insurance cost of imports. In gold, spot stands at 4,383.45 dollars in our reading and at 4,378 dollars, up 64 dollars, in the Tehran union's announcement, while spot silver went the other way, down 2.28 dollars to 62.28 dollars.

From East Asia came two dated readings, both with a channel to Tehran. First, China's holdings of US Treasuries fell to 618 billion dollars, the lowest since August 2008 (Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing the US Treasury Department and the Financial Times, 28 Shahrivar); its channel to Tehran runs through the global dollar and from there the rial price of gold. Second, China's vice premier travels to the United States from Saturday to Wednesday ahead of the Xi and Trump meeting (Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing IRNA and Anadolu Agency, 28 Shahrivar), and the same day China's Commerce Ministry condemned the new US sanctions law targeting Russia and Iran; China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil, and any change in that corridor reaches foreign currency revenue.

In the Persian Gulf, fire and smoke rose from a fuel depot at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport and flights were halted (Khabar Online, citing Mehr News, Al-Quds Al-Arabi and Reuters, 28 Shahrivar); any disruption to the region's fuel infrastructure reaches the risk premium on freight and insurance in these same waters. In the dirham corridor, the UAE dirham was recorded 353 tomans higher at 62,708 tomans on Saturday, raising the rial cost of imports through Dubai by the same amount.

12. Conclusion

Today's verdict is this: Saturday belonged to the seller, not to bad news. Nothing new happened on the board to explain a 1.44 percent fall; the market opened higher, with Foulad up 2.8 percent and Fakhouz up 2.72 percent on the previous close, and then handed that open back. The one thing worth remembering is this: when a heavyweight symbol opens positive and closes negative, the day's news is not in the open, it is in the supply that came after it.

Sahmino's previous call settles here, and it broke. Yesterday we said the gap between the main and equal weight indices would stay below 10 percentage points as long as the equal weight index closed above 2 million points, and we set its invalidation at an equal weight close below 1,994,188 points. The equal weight index closed that very session at 1,986,770 points, below the invalidation level, so the call was void in the first session of its horizon. We write that plainly because its condition was written plainly.

Sahmino's new call: the TEDPIX main index stays above the close of Monday 23 Shahrivar (14 September) as long as bourse board turnover stays above 40,000 billion tomans per session; the level of this call is 7,393,272 points, its horizon runs to the close of Tuesday 31 Shahrivar 1405 (22 September 2026), and a single main index close below 7,393,272 points before that date invalidates it (call dated 29 Shahrivar 1405 / 20 September 2026).

13. What to Watch Today

• The 09:00 open in Tehran and whether the main index holds the 7,393,272 point level, the close of 23 Shahrivar; that is the level today's call is tied to.
• What becomes of Fakhouz's 40 million share sell queue at 297 tomans, and whether Foulad again opens positive and closes negative.
• Whether bourse board turnover stays above 40,000 billion tomans after Saturday's 48,923 billion.
• Today's ordinary general meetings on the calendar, including those of Kermf, Saher and Ashna Iranian. The Sahmino market calendar shows upcoming events at a glance.
• Saipa's extraordinary sale starting tomorrow, 30 Shahrivar (21 September), without a lottery, offering the Quick and the Sahand, and its effect on the car market margin.
• The initial public offering of Fenoghreh, shares in Zob Geran Rangin Felez on the Farabourse, announced as the nineteenth IPO of the year.
• Today's first banknote market pricing and which way the gap between the free dollar and the Exchange Centre remittance rate moves, after standing at 63,898 tomans on Saturday.
• A new settlement for the rebar family on the Iran Mercantile Exchange, last recorded on 25 Shahrivar (16 September).