Following unprecedented plunges since Saturday, stocks had opened Tuesday in positive territory boosting sentiments that the market may enter a recovery phase after breath-taking losses.
However, the optimism was short-lived as symbol tickers soon began to turn red, leading the Tehran Stock Exchange’s main gauge to close trading session down about 7,000 points and dropping more than 1.9% for the day, Financial Tribune reported.
The organization in charge of regulating the stock market has recommended investment funds to use their financial resources to prop up the main index and prevent further decline in the apparently vulnerable market.
Investment funds have pumped billions of rials into the bourse to buy big-cap stocks that traditionally have the most significant impact on TEDPIX.
Capital Market Stability Fund and the Capital Market Development Fund have been mandated to participate in the market.
While market regulators helped big listed companies in the unprecedented bear market over the past few days, the sell-off still continues to hit small-cap stocks.
As a more reliable indicator for rating the performance of small companies, the equal-weighted index was way lower than TEDPIX at 3.14%.
The index is a type of weighting that gives the same weight, or importance, to each stock and the smallest companies are given equal weight as the largest ones.
Equities in both TSE and over-the-counter Iran Fara Bourse made a rare nosedive at the start of the week on Saturday, shedding more than 16,700 points, following concerns over military and political tensions in the strategic Persian Gulf.
The bearish trend has remained unchanged since then, except for a hiatus on Monday, when the market was closed to honor Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force who was assassinated by the US army in Baghdad on Friday.
Market Performance
The TSE's main index TEDPIX lost 6,972.45 points, or 1.91%, on Tuesday to end trading at 358,843.21.
About 6.38 billion shares valued at 27.4 trillion rials ($207 million) changed hands at TSE for the day.
Trading at TSE and over-the-counter Iran Fara Bourse starts on Saturday and ends Wednesday.
Dashtestan Cement Industries Company was the biggest winner as its shares went up 5 % to 17,865 rials per share.
Charkheshgar Company (auto part maker) incurred the biggest loss among all TSE-listed companies and went down 5 % to 6,118 rials per share.
MAPNA Group contributed the most to the benchmark's fall, followed by Bank Mellat and Pars and Isfahan Oil Refinery Company.
Telecommunication Company of Iran gave the biggest boost to the benchmark index, followed by Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, Khorsan Steel Complex Company and Pakshoo Industrial Group.
Iran Fara Bourse main index IFX lost 112.01 points, or 2.36%, to close Wednesday trade at 4,630.89.
About 2.57 billion securities valued at 12.9 trillion rials were traded at the over-the-counter exchange for the day.
Damavand Power Generation Company, Iran Office Machines Industries (Maadiran), Marun Petrochemical Complex and Middle East Mines and Mineral Industries Development Holding Company had the most negative impact on IFX.
Gohar Zamin Iron Ore Company was the only company that had positive impact on IFX benchmark.