TEHRAN (Dispatches) — Iran’s benchmark stock index gained 4,936 points in the final trading session of the week on Wednesday to close at 5.952 million points, bringing its weekly gain to 3.6%, while total market capitalization approached 17,000 trillion tomans (about $90.4 billion).
The Tehran Stock Exchange’s main index had fallen about 80,000 points in early trading, briefly returning to the 5.8 million range, before recovering to finish 4,936 points higher and reclaim the 5.9 million level.
The equal-weighted index rose 13,000 points to 1.686 million.
Fars and Fmelli weighed about 17,000 points on the benchmark, while Foolad and Shepna contributed about 6,000 points to its rise. Webmellat was the most actively traded stock, with transactions worth about 1 trillion tomans ($5.3 million).
Foolad and Fmelli faced selling pressure from individual investors but received institutional support, recording transactions of about 1.5 trillion tomans each ($8 million) and avoiding declines of more than 3%.
Total market capitalization, which had fallen to around 16,700 trillion tomans ($88.8 billion) in morning trading, recovered during the session to approach 17,000 trillion tomans ($90.4 billion).
Total trading value reached 273.8 trillion tomans ($1.46 billion), while retail trading in shares and equity funds stood at about 42 trillion tomans ($223 million).
Individual investors withdrew about 157 billion tomans ($835,000) from shares, equity funds and pre-emption rights, while 727 billion tomans ($3.9 million) flowed out of fixed-income funds.
About 66% of the market closed in positive territory, while 8.6 trillion tomans ($45.7 million) in buy orders remained unfilled and were carried into the following trading week.
Pharmaceutical stocks attracted the largest inflow of individual investor funds, at 335 billion tomans ($1.8 million), followed by basic metals with 332 billion tomans ($1.8 million). Mining stocks recorded the largest outflow, at 325 billion tomans ($1.7 million).
Vetejarat attracted 260 billion tomans ($1.4 million) in individual investor funds, reportedly with support from several prominent individual investors. Webmellat, another banking stock popular with individual investors, recorded an outflow of more than 200 billion tomans ($1.1 million).
Gold funds attracted 1.111 trillion tomans ($5.9 million) in individual investor funds, while their investment units gained between 2% and 3% during the session.
Iran’s over-the-counter market index rose 166 points to 47,854.
Note: Dollar equivalents were calculated at a Wednesday exchange rate of 188,000 tomans per U.S. dollar.