MADRID, 23 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Ibex 35 closed today’s session with a fall of 0.44%, which brought it to stand at 8,970.0 integers, weighed down by the banks due to the doubts that the Credit Suisse bailout has cast on the ‘CoCos ‘, and after the decision taken yesterday by the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) to raise interest rates by 25 basis points, until placing them in a target range of between 4.75% and 5%.
The president of the Federal Reserve of the United States (Fed), Jerome Powell, after warning that inflation continues “very high”, reaffirmed his commitment to reduce it to around 2%, despite the financial crisis that began after the fall of several medium-sized banks in the American country.
In this sense, Powell defended that the banking system “is safe and resilient” and that, after the “decisive actions” taken together with the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), ” customer deposits are safe.”
Without losing sight of the situation of the European and American banks, investors today will not lose any detail of the Summit of leaders of the European Union, which starts this Thursday in Brussels and where the banking turmoil caused by the bankruptcy of SVB and the sale of Credit Suisse will mark the debate. The decision of the Swiss authorities to erase the ‘CoCos’ when they designed the purchase of the Swiss bank by UBS can have unpredictable consequences, among them in dividends and credit.
In addition, today the Bank of England has announced its decision to raise the reference interest rate for its operations by 25 basis points, which will stand at 4.25%, its highest level since autumn 2008, in response to to the escalation of the inflation and after the decision announced yesterday by the Federal Reserve of the United States (Fed).
However, this decision means moderating the pace of normalization of its monetary policy, since the rise of ‘one quart’ is the least intense undertaken by the institution since June 2022.
The rest of the European stock markets have also closed in ‘red’, with a decrease of 0.89% in London, 0.44% in Frankfurt and 0.16% in Milan. Only Paris ended positive, with a slight revaluation of 0.11%.
Within the Ibex 35, the largest increases have been registered by Grifols (4.28%), Indra (1.43%), Rovi (1.40%), Inditex (1.33%), Acciona Energía (1.04% ) and Cellnex (1.02%).
On the other hand, block banking has led the biggest falls at closing, with a drop of 3.49% in the case of CaixaBank; 3.35% in Sabadell and 2.94% in Bankinter. Behind were BBVA (-2.61%), Unicaja Banco (-2.25%) and Banco Santander (-1.89%).
In the raw materials market, the price of a barrel of Brent quality oil, a reference for the Old Continent, fell 0.23%, to $76.51, while Texas stood at $70.60, 0.42% less.
In the currency market, the price of the euro against the dollar stood at 1.0897 ‘green bills’, while the Spanish risk premium stood at 102.4 basis points, with the interest required on the 10-year bond at 3.232%.
