Iran Market Pulse: Wednesday Morning, 29 July 2026; Brent Jumped 4.45% Overnight

When you last checked the oil board yesterday afternoon, Brent was trading near $84, its lowest level in more than a week. This morning, at 07:57 on Wednesday 7 Mordad 1405 (29 July 2026), the same barrel is priced at $87.61: a 4.45% gain in a single night. According to CNBC, the driver was a resumption of exchanged strikes between the United States and Iran after a brief diplomatic pause; the risk premium that last week's negotiation headlines had drained was priced back in within hours. The point that matters for today is that the domestic market has not yet priced this news: as of 07:59 this morning, traded 18 karat gold stood at 19,763,100 tomans, essentially unchanged (0.01%). The Tehran Stock Exchange opens at 09:00 against this new backdrop.

Today's snapshot

Today's headlines

• According to CNBC (7 Mordad / 29 July), Brent for September delivery rose 3.42% to $86.97 and West Texas Intermediate rose 3.58% to $82.09; the cause was given as a resumption of military tension after the brief diplomatic pause earlier in the week.
• According to the daily Ta'adol, the 152nd gold bullion auction at Iran's Currency and Gold Exchange Center (Tuesday 6 Mordad, 14:00 to 17:00) offered 25 kilograms of standard bullion, all of which traded at a value of more than 608 billion tomans.
• According to Mizan, TEDPIX closed Tuesday 6 Mordad up 56,935 points (1.13%) at 5,109,003; the value of trades was 125,000 billion rials and volume exceeded 18.3 billion shares.
• The Federal Reserve's interest rate decision lands tonight at 21:30 Tehran time (14:00 US Eastern); economists polled by FactSet expect rates to be held in the 3.5% to 3.75% range, which would be the fifth consecutive meeting without a change.
• According to Ta'adol, the Peugeot 207 automatic panorama fell 5 million tomans versus the previous day and traded at 2 billion 775 million tomans.

Gold and coin: the auction did its work

Yesterday morning in this same column we wrote that the coin premium had widened 32.7% in a single day, and warned that a premium is "expectation" and expectation comes back faster than any number; the same day we named the bullion auction as the tool designed precisely to shrink that premium. Twenty four hours later, the receipt showed up on the board: the Emami coin premium shrank by 1,731,000 tomans, from 4,745,000 tomans to 3,014,000 tomans, roughly 36.5% smaller in one session (6 Mordad, 19:59).

What separates this from an ordinary swing is that it ran against the rest of the board. On the same day, 18 karat gold rose 0.72% to 18,341,300 tomans, the gold mesghal rose 0.72% to 79,449,000 tomans, and the free market dollar gained 1.17%. Both inputs that build a coin's intrinsic value went up, yet the coin itself fell 0.82%, closing at 183,995,000 tomans. The only thing that can explain that inversion is supply pressure, and that day's supply had a specific name: 25 kilograms of standard bullion at the Exchange Center's 14:00 to 17:00 auction, all of it traded at more than 608 billion tomans.

How these auctions work, and why offering bullion moves the coin premium, is explained step by step in our lesson "Coin and Bullion Auctions at Iran's Exchange Center", and the previous day's account is in Market Pulse, Tuesday morning 28 July. One caveat for today: the premium is still 3 million tomans, not zero. The full board updates on the gold price page.

Currency: past the 190,000 toman mark

The free market dollar closed yesterday up 2,200 tomans (1.17%) at 190,200 tomans, crossing the 190,000 toman line for the first time. Market reports logged the same zone with small differences: Donya-e-Eqtesad reported 190,990 tomans and Eghtesad News 191,200 tomans, with an intraday high of 191,220 and a low of 186,380 tomans, an intraday range close to 5,000 tomans, itself a sign of a tense market.

On the official side, the Exchange Center's dollar transfer selling rate rose only 0.2% to 152,096 tomans. The result is a gap of roughly 38,100 tomans, meaning the free market sits close to 25% above the official rate; that gap widened slightly yesterday because the free rate moved several times as fast as the official one. The tether rate, per market reports, fluctuated in the 188,000 to 189,000 toman range and had peaked at 191,150 tomans on Monday evening, still below the cash dollar. Live rates are tracked on the currency price page.

Stocks: a fifth green session, this time with more breadth

TEDPIX closed Tuesday 6 Mordad up 56,935 points (1.13%) at 5,109,003, a fifth consecutive positive session. But the more interesting number is elsewhere: the equal weight index rose 1.30% to 1,426,606 points, meaning the equal weight index outran the main index. When equal weight outperforms, the rally is not being carried by a handful of large caps and buying has spread across the market. The Farabourse index also rose 1.63% to 40,862 points (6 Mordad, 12:36). The value of trades was reported at 125,000 billion rials with volume above 18.3 billion shares.

The driver behind these five sessions has been the rotation of money out of parallel markets into equities, which took shape as regional tension eased somewhat and oil retreated. Today's question is exactly there: if that relative calm was the reason money rotated into stocks, what does an overnight jump in oil do to that flow?

Crypto: motionless ahead of the Federal Reserve

Unlike oil, crypto barely moved overnight. Bitcoin fell 0.22% and traded at $63,782 this morning (07:58), while Ethereum fell 1.3% to $1,893.96. The stillness is meaningful: traders are not taking positions before tonight's Federal Reserve announcement. Note that Bitcoin stood at $63,304 yesterday morning, so across two full days it has effectively gone nowhere.

Iron and steel

The steel board logged a small correction yesterday. Arian Foulad 10 mm A3 rebar ex works fell about 1,090 tomans versus the previous day to 69,550 tomans per kilogram, the same producer's 12 mm rebar priced at 68,270 tomans and 14 mm at 68,180 tomans (6 Mordad). A roughly 1.5% drop in rebar on a day when the dollar rose 1.17% owes more to slack construction demand in the Mordad heat and industrial power shortages than to currency inputs; last night's oil jump will pressure this board in the days ahead through both energy costs and global steel prices.

Cars

The car market stayed in correction, and the decline across the Peugeot 207 family was the main signal. According to Ta'adol, the Peugeot 207 automatic panorama fell 5 million tomans and traded at 2 billion 775 million tomans, while the cheapest Iran Khodro passenger car at the factory, the Peugeot 207 with the TU3 engine, is priced at 1 billion 502 million tomans. The gap between factory and market prices remains this market's largest variable, and market prices falling on a day when the dollar rose means trading stagnation is outweighing inflation expectations for now.

Building materials

Cement prices on 6 Mordad were broadly unchanged: Tehran Cement portland type 2 bulk at 4,014,000 tomans per tonne and the same producer's 50 kg bag at 218,000 tomans; Abyek Cement at 3,673,000 tomans and 258,000 tomans respectively, and the Saveh Cement bag at 250,000 tomans. The 40,000 toman spread in bag prices across the three producers persists.

Regional and global backdrop

Beyond oil, Wall Street closed split yesterday: the Dow Jones rose 1.03% to 52,747.32, the S&P 500 gained 0.21% to 7,428.78, but the Nasdaq fell 0.22% to 24,876.91, with chip stocks lagging for a fourth straight day. Spot gold did not react to the oil jump and traded down 0.1% at $4,023.36 this morning, suggesting the global market currently reads this tension as an energy supply event rather than a broad risk shock.

In the neighbourhood, the Turkish lira stayed near its historic low with the dollar to lira rate at 47.3794 (6 Mordad, 18:33); a weaker lira means cheaper Turkish goods in Iran's border trade. The Chinese yuan rose 1.3% in the domestic market to 28,110 tomans (6 Mordad, 19:33), which directly raises the cost of imports from Iran's largest trading partner. The UAE dirham, however, fell 0.4% to 51,285 tomans (6 Mordad, 19:59); a dirham decline on a day the dollar rose usually reflects differences in when rates are logged along the Dubai corridor and is worth watching. The euro to dollar rate stood at 1.1399 this morning (7 Mordad, 07:59).

The takeaway

Today's verdict: yesterday belonged to the coin, last night belonged to oil. The 25 kilogram bullion auction showed that the supply tool can still cut the premium by 1,731,000 tomans in a single session, but a 4.45% jump in oil was a reminder that this market's larger variable is set elsewhere. Remember one thing: a premium can be shrunk with supply, a risk premium cannot; the first responds to domestic policy, the second only to a genuine easing of regional tension.

What to watch today

• The 09:00 market open. Does the oil jump reinforce the five session flow of money into equities (favouring refiners and petrochemicals), or does risk aversion pull money back out?
• The Federal Reserve rate decision, tonight at 21:30 Tehran time. Both spot gold and crypto have been marking time for two days waiting on this number.
• How the coin premium reacts to today's board. If it widens again despite costlier oil, the auction effect lasted less than one session.
• The gap between the free market dollar and the transfer rate. Yesterday's 25% spread is a simple gauge of free market demand pressure.
• Whether the oil jump holds or fades in today's trading; the 22 Tir precedent recorded in our earlier market pulse coverage showed these jumps can give back just as quickly.

Dated events, including the next gold bullion auction, are tracked in the Sahmino market calendar.

Every figure in this report carries its own reference date and time, in Tehran time. The separation of "what happened" from "why it happened" is deliberate: the analytical passages are interpretations of published data and are not buy or sell advice.