TEHRAN- TEDPIX, the main index of Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), rose 2.5 percent to stand at 1.54 million points during the past Iranian calendar week (ended on Friday), IRNA reported.

The indices of Bank Mellat, Tejarat Bank, Iran Khodro Company, Saipa Company, Mobarakeh Steel Company, National Iranian Copper Industry Company, Ghadir Investment Company, Isfahan Oil Refinery, and Iranian Investment Petrochemical Group Company (IIPGC) were the most traded indices during the past week.

TEDPIX had dropped seven percent in the week ended on October 2.

Since the week ended on August 14, the TSE, which is Iran’s major stock exchange, witnessed drop of its main index every week, except for the week ended on September 18.

The index dropped 5.7 percent in the week ended on September 25, and four percent in the week ended on September 11, while it had also experienced a five-percent decrease in the week ended on September 4, a two-percent fall in the week ended on August 28, an 11.3-percent drop in the week ended on August 21, and a two-percent fall in the week ended on August 14.

TEDPIX had hit the record high of two million points on August 2, and while it had been experiencing an unprecedented trend of rising over the recent months, it witnessed several weekly drops since mid-August.

While Iran’s stock market has not received any external shocks such as those form the foreign currency exchange rate, inflation, parallel markets, and international issues, some internal factors have caused the recent drops in this market.

Last week, Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand said that the government is going to continue implementing development programs to help flourishing the capital market.

“The stock market situation is not measured only by the fluctuations of its index. The Iranian stock exchange is in the process of becoming a modern stock market,” Dejpasand said.

The Tehran Stock Exchange’s main index has dropped nearly 600,000 points in less than two months and the shares of some companies have faced a loss of up to 70 percent.

Factors like the increase in the number of members, the growth of the value of transactions, and the expansion of instruments are also indicators of a deepening and growing trend in the market and the index should not be the only factor for evaluating a market, the minister said.

MA/MA