The Ibex 35 began its Tuesday session with a slight rise of 0.1%, placing it at 11,128.4 points by 9:00 a.m. The day is shaped by a stream of corporate earnings, along with Spain’s consumer price index and gross domestic product releases.
The corporate front shows Unicaja Banco informing the market regulator that it closed the first half with a net attributable profit of 294 million euros, a near-double compared with the same period a year earlier.
Indra reported a net profit of 114 million euros from January to June 2024, a 27% increase over the prior year, and has raised its full-year guidance as a result.
Within a macroeconomic backdrop, Spain’s economy grew 0.8% in the second quarter, the same pace as the previous quarter, and accelerated its annual growth to 2.9% according to the quarterly national accounts published by the National Statistics Institute earlier today.
The consumer price index fell by 0.5% in July compared with the previous month and reduced its annual rate by six tenths to 2.8%, driven by lower electricity and food costs, according to advance data from the National Institute of Statistics.
In early session trading, the top performers in the Ibex 35 included Grifols, Puig Brands, and Colonial, advancing 0.99%, 0.86%, and 0.77% respectively, while the laggards featured Naturgy on ex-dividend, down 2.46%, followed by Sacyr and Unicaja Banco, down 0.8% and 0.75%.
Minutes after the market opened, near 9:10 a.m., Unicaja Banco extended its decline to 7.32%, with shares at 1.241 euros.
Across Europe, major stock exchanges opened mixed. London fell 0.42%, while Milan, Paris, and Frankfurt rose 0.34%, 0.28%, and 0.26% respectively.
At market open, Brent crude traded above 78 dollars per barrel, marking a 0.40% drop, while Texas crude fell 0.38% to around 75.52 dollars.
In the currency market, the euro traded around 1.0824 dollars, with a 10-year government bond yield near 3.169%.