The Ibex 35 began Tuesday's session with a slight rebound of 0.09%, standing at 9:00 AM at 17,560.9 points, while the Brent barrel extended its climb to 111 dollars, well above the 72 dollars it was trading at before the attack on Iran by the United States (USA) and Israel.
The rise in crude oil prices takes place after the US president, Donald Trump, reiterated yesterday his ultimatum to Iran, expiring at 2:00 AM this Tuesday, Spanish peninsular time, in which he demands from the Central Asian country the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic route through which approximately one fifth of the oil and gas traded in the world transits.
Maritime traffic around the Strait of Hormuz, a key enclave for global energy supply, has become one of the most delicate focal points of the conflict. Iran has de facto imposed a closure of this corridor, although it maintains that it allows passage to vessels that it does not consider aligned with its adversaries.
Negotiations to put an end to the war
Trump has also assured that Iran's latest diplomatic offer within the framework of the talks to end the war "is not good enough", although he has highlighted that it represents "a very relevant step" in view of his ultimatum.
Specifically, the Iranian Executive has submitted a counterproposal to the United States in which it rejects a partial ceasefire, proposes a longer-term exit, demands the lifting of sanctions, and proposes a new protocol for transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
In this climate of maximum expectation before the outcome of the conversations and the deadline set by Trump, the Dow Jones index and the Nasdaq in the US closed this Monday with advances of 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively, although futures point to moderate corrections at the opening of this Tuesday.
At the same time, the main Asian markets register advances on this Tuesday's session. The South Korean Kospi adds 0.9%, while the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's selective index gains 0.45%. In Japan, the Nikkei rises close to 0.2%. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange remains closed this Tuesday.
In the first minutes of trading, the sharpest declines of the Ibex 35 were for Caixabank (-2.02%), Rovi (-0.91%) and Telefónica (-0.62%), while, on the upside, Solaria (+1.25%) and Puig (+0.91%) stood out.
The main European stock exchanges also opened with a positive tone. Paris advanced 0.44%, while Frankfurt and Milan added 0.1% and 0.39%, respectively, and London revalued 0.05%.
In the corporate sphere, investors have learned, before the opening, that Squirrel Media has subscribed a syndicated loan for 22.5 million euros, "under competitive market conditions", with a group of national public-private financial entities, among which is the Official Credit Institute (ICO).
Likewise, Audax has announced that it has closed a "strategic" alliance with MasOrange, the 'telecom' resulting from the merger of Orange and MásMóvil in Spain, with the aim of commercializing mobile telephony, fiber, and fixed-line services in the national market.
On the macroeconomic front, the Spanish Public Treasury opens this Tuesday the April auctions with an issuance of six and twelve-month bills, in which it expects to place between 5.5 billion and 6.5 billion euros.
In this context, the price of the barrel of Brent, a benchmark in Europe, advanced 1.3% at the start of trading on the stock exchanges of the Old Continent, to 111.3 dollars, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI), a benchmark in the US, rebounded 2.3%, to 115 dollars.
Lastly, in the foreign exchange market, the euro was trading against the dollar at 1.1544 "green bills", while the yield required on the ten-year Spanish bond stood at 3.51%.