The Ibex 35 began the week lower, slipping slightly by 0.04 to land at 10,126.2 points as trading started. A clear vein of protest colored the day in Spain, touching banks, agriculture, and fishing among other sectors, while earnings season for companies kicked off.
On the corporate front, CIE Automotive informed the National Securities Market Commission that it recorded a net profit of 320.2 million euros for 2023, up 6.7 percent from 2022’s 300 million euros. With strong momentum anticipated in the coming years, CIE Automotive confirmed it would uphold all its commitments for 2025 and hinted at possible investments totaling up to 1.5 billion euros by the end of its strategic plan. The company noted that this capital could be directed toward any corporate operation that creates value at any given moment.
In the early hours of trading, Grifols led the Ibex 35 gains with a rise of 2.87 percent ahead of its upcoming results release this week, followed by Ferrovial at 0.72 percent, Banco Sabadell at 0.71 percent, and Logista at 0.66 percent. Among the day’s losers were Naturgy down 0.52 percent, Enagás down 0.45 percent, and Banco Santander down 0.38 percent. [Source: Reuters]
Across Europe, the major stock exchanges opened the week mainly in negative territory. Paris fell about 0.25 percent, London and Frankfurt hovered around a 0.09 percent decline, and Milan slipped by 0.03 percent. [Source: Reuters]
At the opening bell, Brent crude, the European benchmark, traded down 0.22 percent at 80.62 dollars per barrel, while Texas Intermediate stood at 76.28 dollars, down 0.27 percent. In currency markets, the euro rose to 1.0831 per dollar, and in government debt markets the yield on Spain’s 10-year bond edged up to 3.227 percent. [Source: Bloomberg]