Market News

– The CEO’s advisor of Iran Privatization Organization announced that 630 state-owned businesses will be considered to the private sector until this current year-end (March 2018). The total amount of divested businesses by the organization in the first 5 months of 1397 reached IRR 25,000 bn (USD 566 mn) which topped the record of its past 12 months. Apparently, 100% of current year’s divestitures were dedicated to the purely private sector and the share of semi-governmental entities was zero. 

– After unveiling the new FX package by the CBI, the new list of essential commodities entitled to a subsidized USD/IRR rate of 42,000 has been announced by the administration. Other than mentioned goods of the below list, any orders placed for imports shall provide the required FX via NIMA platform (of course after approval of the industry and mines ministry) and on the free market FX rate (that now hovers around 80,000-85,000).

– Iranian Exchange houses have now officially returned to the FX transaction loop and the central bank issued a directive today showing the scope of their work. According to the below table, exchange houses are allowed to provide the demand side on the following activities:

– French automaker Renault has exported 5,581 of its products to Iran in the 6th month of 2018 which shows a decrease of over 50% contrary to the same period 2017. The US sanctions snapback is the major factor for the reduced exports of French giant according to the company’s officials.

Stocks broke their super bullish trend of this week and tumbled on today’s session, with theTEDPIX shedding 1.54% to 131,521.62. Moreover, the Chemical-heavy IFEX lost 2.12% as well in a day that only could be called a major correction for the whole market. Analysts believed that after the consecutive session of advances of early weel, the market needed a break to fuel further for its next rally.

As always, today’s bearish rally led by the giants of Chemicals (-2.44%) and Metals (-0.79%). Persian Gulf Petrochemical (-4.26%) finally gave in and closed with a sell queue, dragged its newcomer subsidiary, Pars Petrochemical (PARS, -3.78%) with itself and recorded 439.75 negative points on the index. Except for a few tickers who left behind the sector’s rally, all the other components ended the day a tick behind their flat lines.

On the flip side, the poor Banking (+1.79%) sector which suffered a lot from economic reforms were highly demanded today mostly due to a better than expected analyzed effects of the new FX package on components who deal with FX translations. Mellat Bank (BMLT, +4.97%) was the front-runner to this move and closed the day with a massive 112 mn buy queue. Other names of the industry also ended the day in green ranging from 0.34 to 4.97%. However, the sector lost a lot in m-cap during the previous months and was not strong enough to make a difference on this red day.

Finally, the same happened for the Auto (+1.50%) yet with lower strength. Almost all of the major companies ended the day on a surprisingly higher note. Iran Khodro (IKCO, +2.10) was their leader and other followed in its footsteps. Reaching their bottoms on technical levels can be considered as the main catalysts which shadowed the fact that US sanctions will heart the sector the most.

Source:

2018, Iran Privatization process in on Track!, Wednesday, Aug 08, p.1,<https://agahgroup.com>