Tehran Stock Exchange’s CEO on Tuesday called for more support for Iran’s infantile investment industry and promoting long-term investing.
“Lack of attention to mutual funds in the capital market is our issue,” Hassan Ghalibaf-Asl said in the second Mutual Fund Brainstorming Meeting. “This is due to the focus of investors on returns.”
“Investors focus too much on returns and disregard risk, they look at high and low risk companies, in the same fashion,” Said the CEO.
The value of diversifying risk should be advertised more often, he added.
He criticized the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) for reducing its coverage of the equity market during the current bear market, saying when there was a Bull Run at the TSE IRIB eagerly reported on it and invited TSE officials. “But now, they rarely cover the stock market.”
Ghalibaf-Asl suggested that different mutual funds with dissimilar strategies be created and “should be named according to their strategies so that various classes can invest in them.”
Currently, there are around 200 mutual funds and a handful of exchange traded funds in Iran. Over half of the funds have outperformed the market, which has slumped 17 percent in the past year. Of these, 54 are equity funds. Also, Iran’s 33 fixed-income and 14 hybrid funds have all outperformed the TEDPIX – the TSE’s benchmark index.
