MADRID, 3 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

This Friday, the Ibex 35 concluded its worst week since the beginning of last August with a fall of 2.69%, reaching 10,854.7 points, weighed down by large financial entities and Inditex.

The main indicator of the Spanish market, which has ended a streak of two consecutive weeks of growth, despite everything, has accumulated a positive return so far this year of 7.45%.

The stock market week, between April and May and which kept the stock markets closed on Wednesday for Labor Day, has been full of macroeconomic and business events, such as banking results, the announcement of an eventual merger of BBVA and Banco Sabadell, the meeting of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the stock market debut this Friday of the Catalan conglomerate Puig.

The key day of the week was Tuesday, when the index plummeted more than 2% (its worst session since March 2023) due to the downward pressure from BBVA, Banco Santander and Caixabank, which precisely concluded the week as the values with the steepest declines.

That day the proposed merger of BBVA with Sabadell was announced. In this regard, XTB analyst Joaquín Robles has pointed out that "although there has not yet been a response from the Catalan entity, it seems that the positions are closer than in 2020."

The bank resulting from the merger of BBVA and Banco Sabadell would surpass CaixaBank as the largest bank in Spain, without taking into account foreign businesses, according to balance sheet data from financial entities compiled by Europa Press.

On the other hand, the large Spanish banks have continued to improve their results in the first quarter of 2024, pulverizing the profits they obtained last year, achieving a joint net profit of 6,676.8 million euros, 17.2% more than in the same period of 2023, according to data collected by Europa Press.

These figures take into account the consolidated results of Bankinter, Sabadell, BBVA, Unicaja, Santander and CaixaBank. All of them have continued to rely on income growth in this first part of the year, especially margins, in the face of high interest rates.

The next day -Wednesday-, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) decided to maintain interest rates in the target range of 5.25 for the sixth consecutive meeting. % to 5.5%, highest since January 2001.

In the press appearance after the announcement, the president of the Fed, Jerome Powell, stressed that rate cuts are far away due to the lack of confidence about inflation, so the market does not expect cuts until the end of the year.

On the other hand, the market does expect the ECB to make a move at its June meeting thanks to data such as eurozone inflation in April, which stood at 2.4% in the annual rate, as reported by Eurostat on Wednesday.

This Friday, in which the Ibex recorded a decrease of 0.16%, it highlighted that the unemployment rate in the United States has risen more than expected, to 3.9%, which has partially relieved the pressure of the market on the idea of ​​an aggressive and extensive monetary policy by the Fed.

Given this situation, the biggest increases within the Ibex 35 throughout the week have been for Banco Sabadell (11.47%), Solaria (7.48%), Unicaja (6.44%) and Grifols (6.01 %).

On the other hand, the stocks with the worst weekly performance were BBVA (-10.33%), Caixabank (-7.02%), Banco Santander (-6.6%), Inditex (-5.56%), Rovi ( -2.53%) and Repsol (-2.34%).

The fashion and perfumery group Puig Brands has closed its first day on the Spanish stock market flat with its shares at 24.5 euros, after having risen more than 8% at the beginning of its trading on the stock market.

The evolution of European markets has been uneven this Friday: Milan has subtracted 0.32%, while London, Paris and Frankfurt have added half a percentage point each thanks to the aforementioned employment report from the United States and the increases of more than 1% of Wall Street.

Regarding the New York indicators, Robles has pointed out that among the results of the technological giants those of Apple have stood out, since, although it suffered a new drop in its sales, it rebounded by announcing the largest share buyback program in history valued at 110 billion dollars.

At the same time, the price of a barrel of Brent quality oil, a reference for the Old Continent, fell more than 5% in the week, to 83.2 dollars, while that of Texas stood at 78.4 dollars, 6.5% less.

In the foreign exchange market, the price of the euro against the dollar advanced 0.7% in the week, up to 1.0767 'greenbacks', while in the debt market the interest required on the 10-year Spanish bond It closed at 3.258% after subtracting one tenth from last Friday's close; The risk premium (the spread with the German bond) remained at 76.5 points.

According to Robles, during the next week there will be fewer references that can move the markets, although among the most notable are the services PMI in Spain and the Bank of England's monetary policy meeting.

In addition, the business results in Spain of Spanish companies such as Indra, Amadeus, Endesa, Rovi, Fluidra, Logista, Ferrovial, Telefónica, ACS, Sacyr, Meliá and IAG will be known.