On the Tehran Stock Exchange board of Monday, 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026), two symbols gave opposite answers to the same question. Buyer power (قدرت خریدار, the ratio of per-capita retail buying to per-capita retail selling) stood at 1.6 for Iran Khodro and at 0.78 for Khiman. One says buyers had the upper hand; the other says sellers did. Yet both symbols closed higher that day, and in both, net retail trading volume was positive. The contradiction is not an accident. It follows directly from what the ratio actually measures, and from what it does not measure at all.
Background
Buyer power is the single most quoted number in the daily conversation of Iran's retail shareholders. In chat groups and trading rooms, a rising ratio is read as money coming in and a falling one as money going out. The precise definition is written down far less often: buyer power is per-capita retail buying divided by per-capita retail selling. Per-capita retail buying is the total value bought by individual investors divided by the number of individual buyers, and the selling side is computed the same way for individual sellers.
The popularity is easy to explain. In a market where retail order flow is a large share of turnover, an investor wants to know who was on the other side of the trade. The session of 12 Mordad was exactly the kind of day that sharpens the question. The main index (TEDPIX) rose 123,281 points, or 2.39 percent, to 5,277,339 points, and the equal-weight index gained 36,452 points, or 2.49 percent, to 1,497,760 points. The midday market pulse that day showed 96 percent of the index gain was booked before 9:05 a.m. On a session like that, the temptation to read market direction off a single ratio is stronger than usual.
The numbers: the board of Monday, 3 August 2026
Three symbols from that session, snapshot taken at 13:20 on 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026):
| Symbol | Buyer power | Net retail volume | Price change | Closing price |
|---|
| Iran Khodro | 1.6 | plus 1.38 billion shares | 2.91 percent | 566 rials |
| Vabank | 1.36 | plus 6,455,000 shares | 2.98 percent | 8,290 rials |
| Khiman | 0.78 | plus 2,447,968 shares | 0.23 percent | 4,440 rials |
In Iran Khodro, individuals bought 4.20 billion shares and sold 2.82 billion; total turnover in the symbol was 253.13 billion tomans across 6,238 trades. In Khiman, retail buying was 148,162,208 shares against retail selling of 145,714,240 shares, on turnover of 66.18 billion tomans across 3,208 trades. In Vabank, retail buying of 14,260,956 shares faced retail selling of 7,805,956 shares.
Here is the key point. In Khiman, retail buy and sell volumes were nearly equal and the net came out positive, yet buyer power stayed below one. Market-wide on the same day, across the 1,077 symbols we track, net retail volume was positive at 19.15 billion shares and exchange turnover reached 28,689 billion tomans. Measured by retail flow, it was a day of inflow. Khiman's board did not say so.
Drivers: what the formula actually measures
Expand the formula and the puzzle dissolves. Buyer power equals the ratio of retail buy value to retail sell value, multiplied by the ratio of the number of sellers to the number of buyers. Within one symbol in one session, prices are close together, so the first term is approximately the ratio of buy volume to sell volume. In Khiman that ratio was about 1.02, which means the 0.78 reading came almost entirely from the second term: the number of individual sellers was roughly a quarter smaller than the number of individual buyers. A handful of large sellers stood against a large crowd of small buyers.
So the ratio reports concentration, not direction. It says how few hands the money gathered in, not whether money entered or left. Three common misreadings follow directly:
One, high buyer power does not necessarily mean money coming in. The ratio rises when buyers are few and large, and that can occur alongside negative net retail flow. Khiman on 12 Mordad was the mirror image of the same logic: ratio below one, flow positive.
Two, a single large trade can move the one-day number. The average trade in Khiman that session was worth about 20.6 million tomans. A single order of 5 billion tomans is on its own equivalent to roughly 243 average trades and can shift the per-capita figure overnight. That is why a one-day reading is close to meaningless and the ratio has to be watched over a multi-day window.
Three, the ratio says nothing about company quality. On the same board, Iran Khodro carried a buyer power of 1.6 with earnings per share of minus 49 rials and a price-to-earnings ratio of minus 11.6, while Khiman, at 0.78, showed earnings per share of 1,533 rials and a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.9. A number that measures buyer concentration does not measure profitability.
How it differs from net retail-to-institutional flow
The second metric routinely confused with buyer power is net retail-to-institutional flow (خالص جریان حقیقی به حقوقی): the difference between the value individuals bought and sold, which directly states whether retail money entered or left. Per the editorial brief behind this piece, retail inflow of about 2,870 billion tomans was reported for the session of Sunday, 11 Mordad 1405 (2 August 2026). That figure is about direction; buyer power is about distribution. One says how much money arrived, the other says how many hands it arrived in.
In Iran Khodro on the same day, institutions bought 270,515,822 shares and sold 1,651,481,500, meaning the counterparty to retail buyers was mostly institutional. That too should be read carefully: in the Iranian market, institutional does not necessarily mean smart money, because part of institutional trading is done under support mandates or to meet fund redemptions.
Outlook
As long as retail order flow stays a large share of Tehran turnover, this ratio will stay in the daily conversation. Analysts who take it seriously generally require three conditions together rather than separately: buyer power above one, trading volume at least twice the 30-day average, and positive net retail flow. Any one of them alone can be the product of a single large order. This is a framework for reading the board, not a buy or sell recommendation; investment decisions depend on other factors, some of which we covered in the common cognitive errors of the market.
Bottom line
The session of 12 Mordad 1405 (3 August 2026) showed that buyer power does not measure market direction: Khiman closed green at a ratio of 0.78, and retail money flowed into it. The number is a concentration measure, telling you how few hands the day's money gathered in, and it makes no claim about inflows, price direction, or company quality. If one thing survives from this piece, it is this: never read buyer power on its own, and never over a single day.
What to watch
In coming sessions, read buyer power alongside net retail flow and the ratio of volume to the 30-day average, and follow the same ratio for a given symbol over a five to ten session window so that the effect of single-day block trades is diluted. A widening gap between the main index and the equal-weight index also shows whether buying is concentrating in large or small names. Daily prices for each symbol are updated on the Sahmino equities page and, for these names, on the Iran Khodro page.
