The sharp rises on Tuesday give way to profit-taking in a new session marked by inflation data in the euro zone economies and a new wave of corporate results.
The Ibex-35 lost 0.76%, however, holding 9,322 points, thanks in part to Indra’s upward push, which rose close to 5% after publishing much better results than anticipated by the market. ArcelorMittal, Amadeus, Repsol and Telefónica, all with increases of between 2.30% and 1.1%, accompanied the value at the top of the table.
However, they did not exert enough force to offset the red numbers presented by Colonial, with a 5% drop, followed by falls of almost 3% in Bankinter, 2.57% in Acciona Energías Renovables and the environment around the 2.5% for Merlin and Iberdrola.
Another of the great protagonists of the session was Ferrovial, which closed with increases of 0.62% a day in which the value was involved in a strong controversy after learning of its decision to transfer its headquarters from Spain to the Netherlands.
The markets had started the session in a bullish mood. However, they turned red after a weak opening on Wall Street and, above all, after the publication of inflation data in Germany. The CPI for the German economy stood at 8.7% in February, worse than expected. But the data that surprised the market the most was the rise in food prices, which shot up 21.8% year-on-year.
Against this backdrop, and given the prospect of more resilient inflation than expected, investors – including those on the stock market – are increasingly following the evolution of the debt markets, where the required return on bonds (which moves inversely to the price) continues to rise without brake in recent days.
This movement can be interpreted as the markets are discounting higher interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Fed. Specifically, the interest on the US ten-year bond touched 4% on Wednesday, while the German bond at the same term, the main reference in Europe, already exceeds 2.7%. The interest on the Spanish one-decade bond also exceeded 3.73% yesterday, a maximum of 2014.