Spain’s stock index opened slightly bullish on Friday and was headed for a cumulative gain of almost 2 percent over the past five days, its best weekly performance since late November.
The attention of financial markets remained focused on the fight against inflation of the big central banks, with special interest in the possible direction of interest rates in the United States, after two economic indicators published on Thursday that point to the resilience of the economy despite the increase in financing costs.
In this sense, on Friday a consumption report will be published in the country that includes the core price indicator PCE, which if it turns out to be lower than expected would resurrect the hope that the Federal Reserve will lower the pace of monetary tightening.
Bankinter Analysts highlighted that the underlying private consumption deflator (PCE) is “the price indicator by which the Fed (Federal Reserve) is guided and “should go back (higher rates, bottlenecks and falling energy prices), but central banks do not have them all with them and use their dialectic to cool the market.
“The core rate is expected to pull back to +4.6% from +5.0%, but would still rise +0.2% month-on-month. Will it be enough for the Fed? Probably,” they added.
Also on the macroeconomic level, on Friday the University of Michigan consumer confidence index for December and data on new home sales in November, also in the United States, will be released.
Moreover, markets are digesting the prospect of a slowdown in economic activity in China in the short term as a result of the sharp rise in infections following the de-escalation of COVID-19 restrictions.
The authorities of the second world economy foresee a peak of infections within a week, which will test the country’s health system, and expect the wave to last one or two more months from that moment.
At 08:05 GMT on Friday, Spain’s selective Ibex-35 was up 8.40 points, or 0.10%, at 8,280.50 points, while the FTSE index of large European stocks Eurofirst 300 advanced 0.10%.
After three weeks down, the Ibex-35 It accumulates a rise of 2.07% since last Friday’s close. In the month as a whole, it registered a decrease of 0.99%, and in the quarter it rebounded by 12.4%, the best evolution since the last three months of 2020, when the first positive results of the COVID-19 vaccines were known.
In the absence of a few days to conclude the year, the Ibex-35 points to a decrease of almost 5% in 2022, after an increase of 7.9% in 2021.
As for individual securities, in the Santander banking sector rose 0.46%, BBVA was down 0.30%, Caixabank advanced 0.30%, Sabadell gained 0.89%, and Bankinter dropped 0.88%.
Among the large non-financial securities, Telefónica rose 0.1%, Inditex advanced 0.08%, Iberdrola was revalued by 0.09%, Cellnex fell 0.10% and the oil company Repsol lost 0.34%.
