The Ibex 35 index of the Madrid Stock Exchange began this Thursday’s session with a drop of more than 1%, putting the benchmark at 18,689.10 points. The day was shaped by the wave of corporate results, the decision of the United States Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged and the expectation regarding the future course of the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB).
In the first moments of trading on the Plaza de la Lealtad, the banking sector concentrated the heaviest selling in the index, after the presentation of BBVA and Sabadell’s accounts and after yesterday’s announcement in the United Kingdom about the increase to 6% from the current 3% of the additional surcharge applied to the profits of financial institutions.
Thus, the sharpest declines at the opening of the Ibex 35 were found in the financial sector, with BBVA falling 5.43%, Sabadell 2.27% and CaixaBank 1.50%.
The rest of the banks in the benchmark also started in negative territory. Specifically, Santander shares were down 0.93%, Bankinter’s by 0.45% and UniCaja Banco fell 1.1%.
On the opposite side, the most notable gains in the Ibex 35 at the start of Thursday’s session corresponded to ArcelorMittal, which advanced 1.12%, Solaria, with 1.07%, and Acerinox, which added 0.71%.
As for the main European stock exchanges, Paris’s Cac 40 (+0.76%), Frankfurt’s Dax (+0.37%) and London’s Ftse100 (+0.36%) opted for gains, while Milan’s FtseMib lost 0.38% in the first minutes of trading.
For its part, in the currency market the euro continued losing ground against the "greenback" and was exchanged for ,11147 dollars, while Brent crude oil, the benchmark in Europe, stood at around 110 dollars.