Do US sanctions over Iran move the stock of the companies they hit?
I measured the share price of listed companies before and after more than 50 US fines, charges and sanctions over Iran since 2009. Here is what the data suggests.
The US fines, charges or sanctions a stock-market-listed company over Iran every few months. I wanted to know whether you could profit by shorting them, that is, betting their shares will fall. I measured each share against its home market's index after more than 50 US actions since 2009. Six cut the shares by 10% or more within a week. Each time, the US took away something the company could not run without. The fall came after the US acted, at the next open, even when the evidence had been public for years.
Fines and terminal sanctions barely move the stock
Most US actions were fines on banks that moved dollars for Iranian clients before 2016. In 29 of 34 the shares moved less than 5% against the local index in the week after, and the size of the fine made no difference. The market had usually known about the investigation for years, and a fine is a one-off cost.
The 2025 sanctions on Chinese oil terminals look serious and were not. Each sanctioned site was a part-owned terminal inside a large group. Sinopec Kantons expects a HK$127M loss from closing its sanctioned terminal, and its shares fell 4% that week.
| Owner (listing) | Sanctioned site | Stake | US action | Share move, 5 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wintime Energy (Shanghai) | Huaying Huizhou terminal | 80% | 2025-03-20 | −1.0% |
| Qingdao Port (Hong Kong / Shanghai) | Dongjiakou terminal | 70% | 2025-08-21 | 0.0% / −6.4% |
| Zhangjiagang Freetrade (Shanghai) | Yangshan Shengang depot | 28% | 2025-08-21 | −7.9% |
| PetroChina (Hong Kong) | Yangshan Shengang depot | 21% | 2025-08-21 | −1.8% |
| Shanghai International Port (Shanghai) | Yangshan Shengang depot | shareholder | 2025-08-21 | −3.0% |
| Sinopec Kantons (Hong Kong) | Rizhao Shihua terminal | 50% | 2025-10-09 | −3.6% |
The six big falls: the US took away the main business
| Company | Year | What the US took away | Share move vs index |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZTE (Hong Kong) | 2018 | US chips: an export ban for breaking its 2017 Iran plea deal | −41% the day trading restarted |
| COSCO Shipping Energy (Hong Kong) | 2019 | Two of its tanker companies, sanctioned for carrying Iranian oil | −27% in 5 days |
| ZTE (Hong Kong) | 2016 | US chips: its first export ban | −16% in 5 days |
| Standard Chartered (London) | 2012 | A New York regulator threatened its licence to operate in New York | −17% the next day |
| Halkbank (Istanbul) | 2017 | Its deputy CEO arrested in New York | −13% the next day |
| Hengli Petrochemical (Shanghai) | 2026 | Its Dalian refinery, sanctioned for buying Iranian oil | −10% the next day, −25% in 20 days |
ZTE needed US chips to build phones and network gear. COSCO Shipping Energy's business is tankers, and oil companies stopped chartering any of its ships for weeks. Standard Chartered clears dollars through New York. Halkbank is the odd one: an arrest of one executive, which I read as the first sign the case could reach the bank itself. When the US did charge the bank in 2019, the shares fell 2%. ZTE's 2018 count also includes its $1bn settlement, agreed while its shares were suspended.
The price did not move on the evidence, only on the action
There were public warnings before most of the falls, in the press or in earlier US actions, almost never in the company's own filings. Reuters reported ZTE's Iran surveillance sale in 2012, four years before the first ban. Halkbank's link to the Zarrab gold scheme was public from March 2016, and its shares rose 13% against the Istanbul index in the 60 trading days before its deputy CEO's arrest a year later. Only ZTE in 2018 slid beforehand, by about 7%.
| Case | What was public beforehand | 20 days before | After |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZTE, 2016 | Reuters on its Iran surveillance sale, 2012 | +0.4% | −20% in 5 days |
| ZTE, 2018 | The 2017 plea deal spelled out the suspended export ban | −7% | −43% the next day |
| COSCO Shipping Energy, 2019 | Another Chinese oil buyer sanctioned two months earlier | −2% | −26% in 5 days |
| Hengli Petrochemical, 2026 | Four Chinese oil terminals sanctioned in 2025 | +6% | −25% in 20 days |
| Halkbank, 2017 | Its manager detained in a 2013 Turkish probe; Zarrab arrested in the US in 2016 | +4% | −13% the next day |
| Standard Chartered, 2012 | Investigating its own Iran payments since 2009 (not confirmed public) | 0% | −17% the next day |
The case-study pages measure from slightly different starting closes than the first table, so a few figures differ by a point or two. Each page has the price chart and a saved copy of every source. The six case studies.
OFAC posts at 10am New York time, so Asian stocks fall at the next open
OFAC, the Treasury office that runs sanctions, posts its list updates first on its sanctions-list service, usually about 10:01 am New York time. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Mumbai have closed by then, so their stocks take the whole fall at the next morning's open, 11 hours later. Being fast is no help there. Istanbul, London and Moscow have about an hour of trading left.
| Company | US action | At the next open | At the close | After 5 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| COSCO Shipping Energy (Hong Kong) | 2019-09-25 | −25.0% | −21.1% | −26.4% |
| ZTE (Hong Kong), after suspension | 2016-03-07 | −13.7% | −10.3% | −14.7% |
| Halkbank, deputy CEO arrested (Istanbul) | 2017-03-28 | −10.6% | −14.3% | −14.3% |
| Hengli Petrochemical (Shanghai) | 2026-04-24 | −10.0% (daily limit) | −10.0% | −2.5% |
| Halkbank, bank charged (Istanbul) | 2019-10-15 | −7.2% | −3.5% | +0.4% |
| Sinopec Kantons (Hong Kong) | 2025-10-09 | −1.8% | −4.3% | −6.9% |
| Industrial Bank of Korea (Seoul) | 2020-04-20 | −1.8% | −2.9% | −1.0% |
Raw share moves, not against the index. I measured daily prices only: free minute data goes back 30 days, and no listed target was hit in that window.
Who could be next
The US now adds Iran listings at six times the 2024 pace, and on 2026-10-05 OFAC warned foreign banks that they can be sanctioned without notice for dealing with Iranian banks. A short needs three things: the sanctioned business is most of the company, the company depends on something the US controls, and the shares trade where a foreign fund can bet against them. Nothing I found passes all three.
| Candidate | Likely to be hit? | Would the shares crash? | Can it be shorted? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese oil terminals: Sinopec Kantons, Qingdao Port | Yes, one every few months since 2025 | No: past cases moved owners 0–8% | Yes, in Hong Kong |
| UCO Bank (India) | Possibly: its CEO said in July 2026 it still runs rupee trade with Iranian banks | Yes, if cut off from dollars | Yes, but Mumbai is closed when OFAC posts |
| Halkbank (Turkey) | Low: new Iran business would break its March 2026 deal with the US | Charges moved it 2–13% before | Yes |
| Suppliers to Iran's carmakers: Linglong Tyre, Anpeilong | Possibly: cars sanctionable since 2026-10-01 | Not known | Hardly: mainland China only |
| Banks named in the Halkbank trial: QNB, Bank of Baroda, Emirates NBD | Low: the evidence is from 2012–2016 | Only if cut off from dollars | Yes |
The bank evidence comes from the trial transcripts, an HSBC annual report and a UCO Bank interview, each saved in the repo. No listed non-Chinese bank has been cut off from the dollar over Iran yet, so there is no price history for the one event that would crash a bank stock. Saved bank sources.
What this cannot tell you
- Six large falls is a small sample. The rule I draw from them, that only losing a main business crashes a stock, could break on the seventh.
- Share moves are against a broad local index, from daily closing prices on Yahoo Finance. Other news in the same week is not removed.
- Whether the information is already priced in. Nothing here is secret: court records, filings and Treasury releases are public, and big funds watch the OFAC feed.
- Whether anything here is illegal outside the US. A US sanction is a US measure; buying Iranian oil is not illegal under Chinese law.
- This is research, not investment advice.
Where this leaves a short seller
Public evidence of Iran ties does not pay on its own. The market ignored years of it on ZTE and Halkbank until the US acted, and the companies the US now sanctions most often are small parts of large groups. The trade that would work is a listed bank cut off from US dollars, and the October warning makes that more likely than it has been. If I had to watch one name, it would be UCO Bank, the only listed bank I found that says it still does the business that warning targets.
At a glance
- Question
- When does a US action over Iran move a listed company's share price, and can you see it coming
- Data
- Every US fine, charge and sanction over Iran against a listed company since 2009; daily prices; 391 OFAC list-update timestamps; court records and filings
- Result
- Six falls of 10% or more within a week, all after a main business was cut off or a bank's US access threatened