Tehran stocks added more loss in the last Iranian business week on Wednesday registering the sixth straight weekly declin
The bearish trend was spurred by huge sell-off of small-sized companies, which caused the equal-weighted index of Tehran Stock Exchange to plunge 3.5%.
The TSE’s market cap-weighted benchmark, TDEPIX, posted smaller losses shedding 28,000 points during the week to lose 1.9%.
Iran’s bourse for long is grappling with the aversion of retail investors plus the unending exit of capital.
Net capital outflow by retail investors has become an almost permanent fixture in the past six weeks with net capital outflow by retail investors reaching 15 trillion rials last week.
The pattern of capital outflow is raising serious concern about liquidity with the increasing unwillingness of retail traders to invest adding to the crisis.
Despite the rise in retail trade in the previous week, the contribution of retail investors remains low.
Retail trade increased 7% on the week before, rising from the average 23.97trillion rials per day to 25.61 trillion rials last week.
Given the mounting uncertainty, retail investors have stuck to the wait and see approach with institutional investors picking up the slack.
