The IBEX 35 pulls back ahead of the Fed, with Telefónica standing out from the pack
The IBEX 35 fell 0.71% and lost 9,500 points on a day with no relevant economic data pending the Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting, which will announce its decision on interest rates on Wednesday. Only seven stocks out of 35 closed higher, led by Telefónica, the only one in the IBEX to close with a rise of more than 1%. On the other hand, another punishing day for real estate companies, with Merlin and Colonial in first and third place for falls. They fell more than 2%, as did AcerlorMittal, Meliá and Acciona Energía.
The IBEX 35, the main stock market index, lost 67.6 points, or 0.71%, to 9,482.1 points, reducing its gains for the year to 15.23%. Red was also the dominant colour in the rest of Europe. Paris was down 1.39 %, Milan 1.27 %, Frankfurt 1.05 % and London 0.76 %.
The stock market has started the session with falls and has traded all day in the negative after holding almost flat on Friday, closing with a slight rise of 0.01% and rebounding 1.98% for the week.
The Spanish selective closed last week with gains encouraged by the prospect that the rate hike of the European Central Bank (ECB) – raised rates 25 basis points to 4.5% – was the last in a horizon of economic weakness.
Stock markets and the Fed
This week, markets will be looking ahead to the Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting, although the market does not expect a rate hike despite the fact that August inflation data remained elevated.
“The main focus is on the upcoming Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting, but before that, we will hear the Bank of England’s monetary policy decision, which is expected to raise interest rates due to strong macroeconomic data and persistent inflation,” notes Dario Garcia, analyst at XTB.
The Swiss and Japanese central banks also hold meetings.
During the week, the Eurozone and UK CPI, manufacturing and services PMIs will be released.
The National Statistics Institute (INE) has published this Monday the updated GDP data that show that Spain recovered the level of pre-pandemic GDP already in 2022, has also raised the growth for the years 2021 and 2022, and has reduced the fall of 2020, so that the GDP adds an additional advance of 1.3%.
Telefónica stands out from the general fall of the IBEX 35
In the IBEX, the stock that has fallen the most is Merlin, with 2.66%, and the one that has risen the most is Telefónica, which is up 1.27%.
Among the other major stocks, Repsol rose 0.82 %; Iberdrola fell 0.27 %, BBVA 0.75 %, Santander 1.32 % and Inditex 1.66 %.
On the commodities market, Brent crude oil, the benchmark in Europe, was up 0.85 % at the close of trading at 94.71 dollars per barrel and the euro was up 0.06 % at 1.068 dollars.
The Spanish ten-year bond advanced 4 basis points to a yield of 3.77 %.
