The Ibex 35 of the Madrid Stock Exchange recorded a slight rise of 0.19% in the mid-session of this Thursday, which allowed it to approach again the level of 19,900 points lost the day before, when it marked its worst close of August. At 12:00 hours, the Spanish selective was situated at 19,885 points, in a day conditioned by the rise of tensions in the Middle East after the end, on Monday, of the 60-day truce period, which has again driven up the price of crude to around 94 dollars per barrel.
In the early hours of today, the President of the United States (USA), Donald Trump, has announced that he will launch against Iran "the most devastating economic operation ever undertaken," warning of "an unprecedented economic war and isolation" in which the White House will impose "tremendous economic consequences" on any country that provides support to Tehran through its institutions or companies.
"Oil smuggling, exchange lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, shell companies: all of this must end now. You know who you are," he declared, describing his announcement as an "economic D-Day," referring to the Normandy landing in World War II, one of the decisive operations for the defeat of the Nazi occupation in Western Europe.
The American leader has also lowered expectations for a possible return to the diplomatic path to reach an agreement that ends hostilities, emphasizing that, in his opinion, the situation in Hormuz is now "very good" and that the transit of crude through the strait remains fluid.
From Tehran, Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, has replied that the declaration of "economic war" launched by Trump against the Islamic Republic responds to an "unprecedented" crisis within the United States and "will only bring more defeats" for Washington. "It is a smokescreen in the face of the crisis in the United States: an unprecedented debt and skyrocketing interest costs," Araqchi has pointed out.
In Israel, the Minister of National Security, the far-right Itamar Ben Gvir, who recently suggested killing between "30 and 40 people" every night in Gaza, has now proposed to build a penitentiary complex with a death row for Palestinians that would include a stand from which to witness the hangings.
With this backdrop and the Strait of Hormuz still blocked, the price of Brent, the reference in Europe, rose by 2.54% in the mid-session of European markets, to 93.95 dollars per barrel. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the reference crude in the United States, increased its quotation by 2.14%, to 87.67 "greenbacks" per barrel.
In parallel, investors are digesting the latest minutes from the Federal Reserve of the United States (Fed), released yesterday after the close of markets in the Old Continent, which state that "many" committee members consider it "necessary" for the central bank to proceed with a new interest rate hike if inflation does not continue to moderate.
"Some participants commented that current financial conditions may not be restrictive enough to facilitate a return of inflation to 2%," the minutes from the meeting on July 29 also note, in which the Fed opted to keep its reference rate unchanged.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has reported that the national debt has surpassed for the first time the threshold of 40 trillion dollars (34.4 trillion euros), after the country's liabilities have doubled in less than ten years.
In the Spanish corporate sphere, Banco Santander has completed this Thursday the purchase of the American Webster Financial, a little more than half a year after announcing the operation, once all the authorizations from supervisors and shareholders of the firm have been obtained and the capital increase contemplated in the transaction has been executed.
On the other hand, Ferrovial has announced that it has been chosen to develop the express lanes of I-24 Southeast in Nashville, Tennessee, which will represent the largest private investment and the first public-private collaboration in the history of this southern U.S. state. The consortium led by Ferrovial will be responsible for financing, designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining the project, valued at 9.2 billion dollars (7.882 billion euros).
Likewise, the Saudi operator STC, one of the main shareholders of Telefónica, will pay today a total dividend of 2,746.2 million Saudi riyals (634.9 million euros) among its shareholders.
In this scenario, at 12:00 hours this Thursday, the largest increases within the Ibex 35 corresponded to Ferrovial (+2.87%), Repsol (+1.9%), Rovi (+1.59%), Caixabank (+1.38%) and Merlin (+1.08%). On the side of declines, Sacyr (-2.19%), Acerinox (-2%), Indra (-1.3%), Inditex (-1.13%) and Arcelormittal (-0.74%) stood out.
As for the rest of the major markets of the Old Continent, cuts predominated, with the only exception of the Italian Mib, which advanced by 0.31%. The DAX 30 of Frankfurt fell by 0.41%; the CAC 40 of Paris, by 0.2%; and the FTSE 100 of London, by 0.18%.
In the foreign exchange market, the euro appreciated against the dollar to reach an exchange rate of 1.1707 "greenbacks", while, in sovereign debt, the yield of the Spanish ten-year bond rose to 3.7%.