Official Poll: 77 Percent of Iranian Stock Exchange Investors Lose Out

The latest public poll by the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) found that more than 20 percent of Iranian adults had recently invested in the stock market, of whom the vast majority had lost money.

The survey ran from July 16 to 20 and featured 1,585 respondents aged over 18 living in all parts of Iran. In total, 20.9 percent of participants said they had invested in the stock exchange in the past 24 months. Of these, 77 percent said they had made a loss.

A further 15 percent said they had made “neither profit or loss”, meaning only a tiny fraction had seen a good return on their investment.

The poll came shortly after Ahmad Alireza Beigi, an MP for Tabriz, claimed that some 50 million Iranians had “lost their savings” on the stock exchange over time.

According to the state-run website Navad Eghtesadi, government revenues from the stock exchange, meanwhile, came to almost 18 trillion tomans in 2020-21.

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has described the stock market as the best place to invest and actively encouraged Iranians to do so.

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