Securities And Exchange Organization (SEO)
of Iran Addressing Fixed-Income Funds
Market News
* Attending “the Third Islamic Finance Conference” held on Saturday in Tehran, the Head of Securities and Exchange Organization of Iran (SEO) addressed the necessity of reforms in fixed-income investment funds’ portfolio, since 77% of such funds’ resources are made up of bank deposits with only 4% investment in the stock market, in addition to obliging them to stop guaranteeing a certain amount of monthly return for their unit holders. In its latest directive, the SEO had allowed fixed-income funds to allocate up to 50% of their resources to bank deposits, after the interest rate on bank deposits lowered.
* Following a reform plan along obeying the Central Bank of Iran’s directive to reduce their non-banking activities, 6 Iranian banks, including Bank Refah, Bank Melli, Bank Sepah, Bank San’at va Ma’dan, Bank Tose’e Saderat and Bank Keshavarzi, are planning to sell a part of their so called ‘sour assets’ through the Company for Selling Banks’ Excess Assets, established in 2008, over Dec 22 to Jan 5. Banks have been granted an 8-month period to end their non-banking operations.
* Chabahar’s Shahid Beheshti Port opened over a ceremony attended by guests from 17 countries. The port will facilitate trade between regional countries, mostly India and Afghanistan; as Iran’s only oceanic port, it will also connect Chababar to Gwadar port in Pakistan. It is expected to bolster development and economic boom in Sistan-Balouchestan province.
In the Market
The majority of symbols in the Oil Products space managed to end the sales pressure seen in the previous session and ended above their flat lines. Lavan Oil Refining (+0.14%) has launched new sulfur unit, which adds 30,000 tons/day of granular sulfur to the plant’s production capacity.
The high probability of Hi Web ticker reopening in today’ session dragged other names in the Computer space into the green; Iran Arqam, however, faced a sell queue.
Tickers in the Metals group were traded in a balanced trade and the more we approached the end of the session, more demand was seen; 341 mn shares of Middle East Mining Industries and 69.5 mn shares of South Kaveh Steel were block traded in the retail market as well. Iran Aluminum and Arfa’ Metal and Steel hit their highs.
The estimated growth in coking coal prices was behind the growth in the Coal Extraction group, led by Tabas Coal Processing (+3.6%). Negin-e Tabas Coal and Shomal-e Sharq Mineral and Industrial hit their highs as well.
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