The Voice of America (VOA) reported on October 8 that the Tehran Stock Exchange reportedly saw a sharp decline on the second day of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants, with the overall index plummeting approximately 51,000 points.
VOA says that according to the ISNA news agency, prominent companies, including Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries, Esfahan Oil Refining, Parsian Oil and Gas Development, Bandar Abbas Oil Refining, and Mapna Group, were at the forefront of stock market transactions and all experienced a decline Sunday.
The over-the-counter market's composite index reportedly also stalled with a 659-point drop, closing at 25,025 units.
Economist Siamak Ghasemi attributed the stock market's decline to a "clear indication of a substantial surge in systemic risk in Iran."
According to VOA, in a message on the 'X' messaging platform (formerly Twitter), he said that Hamas' attack on Israel and the onset of a new conflict are the most critical systemic economic risks in Iran, and possibly the entire Middle East, this year.
Following Saturday's attack by Hamas, the foreign currency exchange market in Iran reportedly saw an uptick, with the U.S. dollar reaching 52,250 Iranian tomans at the time of this report, up from 51,500 Iranian tomans a few hours earlier.
The dollar's price surpassing 51,000 tomans broke the previous high of 49,000 tomans, which had been consistent in recent months despite assurances from Iranian officials of a declining trend in the second half of the year.
VOA further noted that according to Iranian domestic news sources, in Tehran's gold and coin exchanges the price of Bahar Azadi gold coins surged from approximately 28 million tomans to over 30 million tomans.
First opened in 1967, the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) is Iran's largest stock exchange. The TSE is based in Tehran. As of May 2012, 339 companies with a combined market capitalization of US$104.21 billion were listed on TSE. TSE, which is a founding member of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges, has been one of the world's best performing stock exchanges in the years 2002 through 2013. TSE is an emerging or "frontier" market.
As of December 2020, 666 companies were listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.
Iran's capital market has companies from a wide range of industries, including automotive, telecommunications, agriculture, petrochemical, mining, steel iron, copper, banking and insurance, banking and others. Many of the companies listed are state-owned firms that have been privatized.
