Tehran's count of rising industry indices fell from 36 to 11 in one session and the main index lost 38,179 points; Iran Market Pulse, Tuesday, September 15, 2026

1. Lead

Two measures of one session, and the distance between them is what explains Monday, 23 Shahrivar 1405 (14 September 2026). Tehran's main index fell 38,179 points, or 0.51 percent, to close at 7,393,272, ending the seven session run of higher closes that had been unbroken since 13 Shahrivar (4 September) (our own board row, the 13:24 close on Monday 23 Shahrivar).

The more precise figure for the session comes from SENA, and it shows the real size of the retreat: in Monday's trading, 11 industry indices closed higher and 7 industries stood at all time index highs, against 36 rising industries and 24 at record highs on Sunday 22 Shahrivar, and 40 rising industries on Saturday 21 Shahrivar (SENA, 21, 22 and 23 Shahrivar). The index fell half a percent; participation across industries fell far more.

Outside the exchange, the banknote market went the other way. The free market dollar rose 1.18 percent and its gap with the Exchange Centre remittance rate opened 2,208 tomans wider in a single session, while 18 karat gold fell 0.82 percent. The market opens at 9:00 today and all of these readings belong to Monday's session.

2. Today's snapshot

3. Today's headlines

• Tehran's main index fell 38,179 points, or 0.51 percent, on Monday 23 Shahrivar to close at 7,393,272, and the equal weight index fell 0.42 percent back below the 2 million point line. SENA reported that in the same session 11 industry indices closed higher, 7 industries stood at all time highs, and retail turnover in shares and equity funds reached about 54 trillion tomans (SENA, Monday 23 Shahrivar).
• The Securities and Exchange Organization licensed the subscription of the capital market's first foreign currency denominated fund. Subscription for the Mana Mellat currency fund opens on Wednesday 25 Shahrivar, and subscribers must buy at least 10 investment units of $10 each (SENA, Monday 23 Shahrivar).
• Ahmad Meidari, Minister of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare, announced that retirees can buy gold in installments at a fixed price. A retiree registers on Bank Refah's Zarrin Tamin platform with a national ID, declares how much gold they want over the next three months, and the cost is deducted from their monthly pension over that period, with the price locked from registration to the end of the term (Arzdigital citing IRIB news agency, Monday 23 Shahrivar).
• Secondary trading in the central bank's coin forward securities, launched on the Iran Mercantile Exchange on 21 Shahrivar, reached 10.5 million units in its first two days, equal to 10,500 full Bahar Azadi coins worth 2.4 trillion tomans (Kala Khabar, Monday 23 Shahrivar).
• Europe's benchmark gas price on the Dutch TTF exchange jumped 6 percent to $97.31 per megawatt hour, its highest since the winter 2022 energy crisis. The driver was the precautionary shutdown of Saudi Arabia's East to West pipeline after last week's drone strike, and European gas storage has fallen below 70 percent of capacity against 82 percent a year ago (Oilprice.com, Monday 23 Shahrivar).

4. Currency

The free market dollar was recorded at 231,300 tomans in the last reading of Monday 23 Shahrivar at 19:59, up 2,700 tomans and 1.18 percent from Sunday's reading. Three independent sources produce this figure: our own feed row, tgju.org, which recorded the same rate for Monday's session, and this morning's alanchand.com reading, which shows the dollar's sell rate at 230,500 tomans and its buy rate at 228,200 tomans at 07:50. One qualification is needed: Monday's highest recorded rate was 234,620 tomans, and Ecoiran reported the 234,000 toman range during trading, so the day's range was 231,300 to 234,620 tomans and the evening close was 231,300.

Today's new figure is built from a subtraction of two rates. The sell rate for the remittance dollar at the Iran Currency and Gold Exchange Centre was recorded on Monday at 08:17 at 164,395 tomans, up 492 tomans and 0.3 percent from Sunday, with the buy rate at 162,916 tomans. Both ends of the arithmetic, stated plainly. Sunday 22 Shahrivar: the free rate 228,600 and the remittance rate 163,903 tomans, so a gap of 64,697 tomans and a ratio of 39.47 percent. Monday 23 Shahrivar: the free rate 231,300 and the remittance rate 164,395 tomans, so a gap of 66,905 tomans and a ratio of 40.70 percent. Subtracting the two gaps gives 2,208 tomans, and subtracting the two ratios gives 1.23 points. Both ends come from one series and one source, and both carry their date.

The direction matters, because it is the exact reverse of the previous session: on Sunday this same gap closed by 5,790 tomans, and on Monday it opened by 2,208. The mechanism of the gap is definitional and needs no extra 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, and that difference in mechanism is what explains why a gap exists at all. Whether it widens or narrows, however, is news rather than definition, because the administered rate moves slowly and the free rate moves fast, so every jump on the free side is added directly to the width of the gap. Someone importing goods on allocated currency and someone buying banknotes bought two different dollars on Monday, and the difference on each dollar was 66,905 tomans.

One piece of context, so the figure is not read as larger than it is: the dollar rose on Monday but is still below where it was a week earlier. Tgju records the rate on Wednesday 18 Shahrivar at 232,700 tomans, which puts Monday's rate 0.6 percent below the reading of a week ago, and the recorded peak of this series is 235,975 tomans on Thursday 19 Shahrivar. The UAE dirham closed Monday at 63,316 tomans, up 476 tomans and 0.76 percent, and this is the effective rate for a large share of Iran's imports routed through Dubai. In global currency markets the euro against the dollar is slightly lower at 1.1535 and sterling at 1.3484, while the dollar against the yen is higher at 154.67 (Tuesday 24 Shahrivar, 07:38).

5. Gold and coin

The gold and coin market retreated on Monday, and the important point is that neither the dollar nor the ounce explains that retreat. 18 karat gold closed at 23,283,400 tomans, down 193,400 tomans and 0.82 percent; the gold mithqal at 100,857,000 tomans with the same percentage; and the Emami coin at 233,985,000 tomans, down 2,020,000 tomans and 0.86 percent. The difference in readings should be stated plainly: the Tehran Gold and Jewellery Union announced the 18 karat gram at 23,503,000 tomans the same day, so the range for gold is 23.28 to 23.5 million tomans and the difference comes from the hour and place of the reading.

The three way arithmetic can be done on paper. The rial price of gold is by definition the global ounce multiplied by the dollar rate. On Monday the dollar rose 1.18 percent while the ounce fell about 0.79 percent over the same window (from $4,330.43 on Monday morning to $4,296 in Ecoiran's end of day report). Together those imply roughly 0.4 percent of growth for the rial gram, yet the rial gram fell 0.82 percent. That means about 1.2 points of Monday's move came neither from the dollar nor from the ounce; that is the part that comes from the domestic premium deflating. This morning, however, the direction has turned: the ounce stands 0.24 percent higher at $4,308.55 and 18 karat trading gold opened 0.42 percent higher at 23,210,100 tomans (Tuesday 24 Shahrivar, 07:44).

And a published decision that reaches people's pockets. Ahmad Meidari, Minister of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare, announced on Monday 23 Shahrivar that retirees can buy gold in installments at a fixed price: registration on Bank Refah's Zarrin Tamin platform with a national ID, a declaration of how much gold is wanted over the next three months, and deduction of the cost from the monthly pension across those three months. The price stays fixed from registration to the end of the three month term, and the purchase ceiling is set according to the central bank's sales authorization; he said the gold in this scheme does not come from bank reserves but from domestic mine output (Arzdigital citing IRIB news agency, Monday 23 Shahrivar). The structure can be described neutrally: locking a price for three months means the risk of price swings is transferred from the buyer to the seller, and in a market that has fallen 4.35 percent this week, that transfer runs in both directions.

Two more figures were recorded on the Mercantile Exchange. Secondary trading in the central bank's coin forward securities reached 10.5 million units in its first two days, equal to 10,500 full Bahar Azadi coins worth 2.4 trillion tomans, and the net asset value of gold funds active on the exchange passed 900 trillion tomans, a record for that series (Kala Khabar, 21 and 23 Shahrivar). Both point the same way: part of gold demand is moving from the cash market onto the exchange. On the board, however, the Lotf gold fund closed 0.09 percent lower at 162,555 tomans and Jam-e Tala 0.14 percent higher at 2,084.8 tomans (Monday 23 Shahrivar, 13:25).

6. Bourse and Farabourse

The Tehran Stock Exchange and the Farabourse are two separate markets with two separate indices, and both closed red on Monday. The main index fell 38,179 points, or 0.51 percent, to 7,393,272. The equal weight index fell 8,473 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,994,188, meaning the 2 million point line it had crossed for the first time on Sunday was lost in the very next session. The Farabourse main index, a separate index on a separate market, fell 24 points, or 0.04 percent, to 57,229, so the Farabourse was almost motionless and the day's decline effectively belonged to the Tehran exchange. Recorded turnover on the Tehran board was 51,906 billion tomans across 1,136,856 trades, and SENA reported retail turnover in shares and equity funds at close to 54 trillion tomans in the same session.

Market breadth, not the index, is the story of the session. SENA publishes the number of industries whose indices closed higher each session, and the last three sessions read as follows: Saturday 21 Shahrivar, 40 rising industries and 24 at all time index highs; Sunday 22 Shahrivar, 36 rising industries and 24 at record highs; Monday 23 Shahrivar, 11 rising industries and 7 at all time highs. From 40 to 11 in two sessions, and industries at record highs from 24 to 7. This measure counts each industry once, which is why it says something the main index does not, since the main index is built on market capitalisation weights. For someone holding a portfolio, the practical meaning is this: the half percent fall in the index happened in a session in which a large majority of industries closed negative.

The board says the same thing, symbol by symbol. In our own board events data, four heavily traded symbols opened Monday below the previous close: Melli Copper with a 2.54 percent downward gap, Isfahan Oil Refining with 2.97 percent, Iran Khodro with 2.35 percent and Dara Yekom with 2.25 percent. All four were in our report yesterday among Sunday's record breakers, so this is a one session reversal in exactly the symbols that had carried the market higher the day before. On the other side, two symbols went against the trend: Mobarakeh Steel recorded its seventh consecutive higher close, reached its highest closing price since 28 Dey 1404 (18 January 2026) at 314.5 tomans, opened with a 2.98 percent upward gap and traded 2.23 times its twenty session average volume; and Palayesh reached its highest level in a year at 61,195 tomans and recorded its third consecutive higher close.

The other side of the trade. In our own data, individual investors were net sellers of 231,431,419 shares across the whole market on Monday, but that total conceals two opposite directions: on the Tehran exchange individuals were net sellers of 959,883,784 shares, and on the Farabourse net buyers of 823,717,077 shares. So individual money left the Tehran board on Monday and a large part of it stayed in the Farabourse, which is consistent with a half percent fall in one and no movement in the other. Two methodological qualifications: these figures count shares, not rial value, and they say nothing about any group's intent. The Base Market, the shallower board inside the Farabourse with wider bands and more halts, recorded no notable event in our data.

This morning before the open, the same four symbols carry sell queues: Iran Khodro with 1,788,012,596 shares at 74.4 tomans, Isfahan Oil Refining with 192,250,326 shares at 1,407 tomans and Dara Yekom with 213,085 units at 56,955 tomans. These readings belong to the 07:50 pre opening board today and will not hold to the end of the session.

7. Crypto

The biggest overnight move came from the crypto market. Bitcoin stands at $77,667 on Tuesday morning 24 Shahrivar at 07:43, down $1,776 and 2.29 percent, and Bitcoin Cash is down 3.4 percent at $222.18. Tether Gold is at $4,304.81, effectively level with the global ounce.

In the domestic market, tether stands at 229,953 tomans, down 242 tomans and 0.11 percent. The ratio of tether to the free market dollar has flipped again: tether this morning is 1,347 tomans below Monday's free market dollar close, or 0.58 percent under it, whereas in yesterday's report the same tether stood 1.68 percent above the free market dollar. The usual qualification applies: these two readings are not taken at the same hour, and the ratio must be measured again once the banknote market opens today.

One dated event is also on the calendar today: the US Senate's final vote on the crypto market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act is set for 15 September, which is today, 24 Shahrivar. Separately, Strategy has paused new bitcoin purchases and its holdings remain at 845,050 units, while Strive bought 469 more bitcoin for $36.6 million at an average of $77,954 each, taking its holdings to 25,000 units (Arzdigital, Monday 23 Shahrivar).

8. Iron and steel

The rebar family has had no new settlement on the Mercantile Exchange since Wednesday 18 Shahrivar, and this is the fourth session without one: a real gap in trading rather than a feed delay. The last settlements were rebar A3 size 14 to 20 at 85,810 tomans per kilogram and size 22 to 32 at 87,272 tomans.

During that same gap the mill side moved again, and the distance between two pricing mechanisms for one identical product grew wider. Arian Foulad's recorded rates on Monday 23 Shahrivar: rebar 14 A3 at 92,270 tomans, 12 A3 at 93,090 tomans, 10 A3 at 93,640 tomans, 12 A2 at 92,360 tomans and 10 A2 at 93,550 tomans. For size 14, the mill rate is 92,270 tomans against the last Mercantile Exchange settlement for the same size at 85,810 tomans, which is 6,460 tomans and 7.53 percent higher. In yesterday's report that same gap was 3,740 tomans and 4.36 percent, so it nearly doubled in one session. The mechanism is clear: the exchange board produces no new figure until there is an offering, while the mill rate updates daily, and the longer the pause runs the wider that gap opens. In global markets, Shanghai rebar is at 3,094 yuan per tonne, down 13 yuan and 0.42 percent (Tuesday 24 Shahrivar, 07:02).

9. Cars

The car market was quiet on Monday and produced no new reading. The Dena Plus Turbo Automatic Optional was recorded at 3,380,000,000 tomans for the 1405 model and 3,250,000,000 tomans for the 1404 model, the Dena Plus 6 speed at 2,470,000,000 tomans for 1405 and 2,370,000,000 tomans for 1404, and the Dena Plus low option 1404 at 2,270,000,000 tomans; all five rows unchanged from the previous reading. In other words, the 4 percent jump in the automatic version that we reported yesterday was not repeated in the following session and settled at that same level.

On the board, however, the Iran Khodro symbol was among the reddest of the session: it opened with a 2.35 percent downward gap and faces a sell queue of 1,788,012,596 shares at 74.4 tomans this morning, having reached its highest level in a year in yesterday's report. Godena on the Farabourse closed 2.75 percent higher at 784 tomans. The carmaker's share and the price of a car should not be treated as one thing: the market price of cars held flat on Monday, and what moved was the share price.

10. Building materials

Cement took a new settlement on Monday 23 Shahrivar and its direction was the reverse of the previous session. Cement type 2 (42.5) bulk settled at a volume weighted average of 26,903 rials per kilogram, or 2,690 tomans, down 242 tomans and 8.23 percent from Sunday's settlement of 2,932 tomans, which had itself been 11.2 percent above Saturday's. Type 2 (32.5) bulk settled at 2,511 tomans and type 1 (42.5) bulk at 2,545 tomans. Yesterday's qualification is worth repeating because it now has a concrete case: the Mercantile Exchange settlement is that day's volume weighted average across whichever producers sold, so an 11 percent jump and an 8 percent fall in two consecutive sessions shows a change in the mix of sellers more than it shows a trend.

For that reason the distance between the official board and the retail shelf opened again. Bulk type 2 cement from the Tehran plant was recorded on Monday at 3,217 tomans per kilogram and from the Abyek plant at 3,230 tomans, about 19.6 percent above the Mercantile Exchange settlement of 2,690 tomans; yesterday that same gap was 9.7 percent. A 50 kilogram bag of Tehran cement costs 240,000 tomans, Abyek 227,000 and Saveh 228,000 tomans. The difference between bulk and bagged by definition contains the cost of the bag, the packaging and distribution, and should not be read as a profit margin. On the board, the cement funds were uniformly red: Simana down 2.67 percent at 4,118.9 tomans, Simano down 2.21 percent at 4,259.9 tomans, Simania down 2.21 percent at 3,960 tomans and the Ciman fund down 2.4 percent at 1,089.2 tomans.

11. Regional and global view

Brent crude stands at $107.00 this morning, up $0.80 and 0.75 percent, and spot gold at $4,308.55, up 0.24 percent (Tuesday 24 Shahrivar, 07:43). Ecoiran reported last night that crude holding above $100 and rising expectations of an interest rate increase had temporarily pushed the ounce below $4,300 and silver down more than 2 percent to $62. The channel from both to Tehran is direct: the ounce is half the rial price of gold, and Brent moves both export revenue and the cost of freight and insurance on imports.

The biggest energy story yesterday, though, was gas. Europe's benchmark gas price on the Dutch TTF exchange jumped 6 percent to $97.31 per megawatt hour, its highest since the winter 2022 energy crisis, after the precautionary shutdown of Saudi Arabia's East to West pipeline; European gas storage for this time of year has fallen below 70 percent of capacity against 82 percent a year ago. The Asian LNG spot price also reached $26 per million British thermal units on Friday, the highest since December 2022, and Oman's Energy Minister Salim al Aufi told the Gastech conference in Bangkok that West Asia needs export routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz (Oilprice.com, Monday 23 Shahrivar).

In the regional corridors, this morning's 07:50 readings are as follows: the UAE dirham at 62,760 tomans, the Chinese yuan at 34,440 tomans, the Turkish lira at 4,810 tomans, the Russian rouble at 2,730 tomans and 100 Iraqi dinars at 14,730 tomans (sell rates, alanchand.com). In global markets those same currencies are close to flat: the dollar against the lira at 48.63 and against the yuan at 6.71. TotalEnergies announced it will raise its investment in Iraq from $12 billion to $16 billion (Shafaq News, Monday 23 Shahrivar), and the Peterson Institute reported that the International Monetary Fund has cut its 2026 growth forecast for Saudi Arabia from 4.5 to 1.7 percent and for the UAE from 5.6 to 1.7 percent (Al Jazeera citing PIIE, Monday 23 Shahrivar). For Iran these figures matter through regional demand and the volume of Persian Gulf trade.

12. Conclusion

Today's verdict is this: Monday was a day about market breadth, not about the index. A half percent fall in the main index looks small, but in that same session the number of rising industries fell from 36 to 11 and the equal weight index gave back the 2 million point line it had held for only one session. Sahmino's reading from yesterday is settled here, and it broke: we said the equal weight index would stay above 2 million points, and it closed the first session of that very horizon at 1,994,188 points, 5,812 points below the level we named. The invalidation condition we set was not triggered, but the reading itself did not prove correct, and we write that down. The one thing to remember is this: when the index gives ground, first look at how many industries came down with it, because half a percent on the index and eleven green industries are two descriptions of one session, and the second is the more honest. You can read yesterday's Sahmino reading alongside this one. Sahmino's new reading: the gap between the two dollar rates stays above 60,000 tomans, as long as the Exchange Centre remittance rate stays below 170,000 tomans; the level of this reading is 60,000 tomans, its horizon is the end of the week, and the gap closing below 55,000 tomans in two consecutive sessions invalidates it (reading dated 24 Shahrivar 1405).

13. What to watch today

• The 9:00 open of the Tehran exchange and the fate of the pre opening sell queues on Iran Khodro (1,788 million shares), Isfahan Oil Refining (192 million shares) and Dara Yekom; and whether the equal weight index recovers the 2 million point line.
• The number of rising industry indices in today's session, to establish whether the fall from 36 to 11 was a single session or the start of a trend.
• The fifteenth auction of government Islamic financial securities of 1405, scheduled for today, and the banking network's share of it.
• The first pricing of the banknote market today and which way the gap between the free market dollar and the Exchange Centre remittance rate goes, after opening 2,208 tomans wider yesterday to stand at 66,905 tomans.
• The deadline for companies to register for the credit based goods purchase scheme, which falls today, and the US Senate's final vote on the CLARITY Act, also set for today.
• A new settlement for the rebar family on the Mercantile Exchange, last recorded on 18 Shahrivar, with the mill rate now 7.53 percent above it.
• The Federal Reserve's interest rate decision tomorrow, Wednesday 25 Shahrivar, and its effect on spot gold and Brent crude, together with the opening of subscription for the Mana Mellat currency fund on the same day. The Sahmino market calendar shows the coming events at a glance.