The Ibex 35 switched sign mid-session and moved into negative territory with a 0.12% drop around 11.30 a.m., which meant losing the 20,000-point threshold and falling back to 19,912.1 points, in a stock-market session in Spain conditioned by a 24-hour general strike called, among other unions, by CCOO and UGT.
It is the first general strike that these union organizations have pushed in 14 years and also the first one held with Pedro Sánchez at the head of the Government presidency.
Outside, the market continues to be attentive to the evolution of the conflict in the Middle East, to diplomatic initiatives aimed at trying to put an end to the war in Iran, and to the doubts raised by the possible impact on the global supply of oil.
Against this backdrop, the price of Brent crude, the benchmark for Europe, was up 2% at mid-session across the Old Continent’s trading venues, to 93 dollars per barrel, while the West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the benchmark in the United States, rose in price by 1.3%, to 87 dollars per barrel.
At that same time, within the Ibex, the gainers side included Repsol (+2.65%), ArcelorMittal (+1.98%), Rovi (+1.51%), Acciona (+1.2%) and Telefónica (+1.1%), while among the most harshly hit stocks were Aena (-1.11%), Sabadell (-0.85%), Caixabank (-0.76%) and Bankinter (-0.74%).
As for the rest of the continent’s major markets, the main European Stock Exchanges extended their gains: Frankfurt rose by 0.6%, while Paris and London advanced by around 0.3%.
In the currency market, the euro fell against the dollar and was traded at 1.1141 “greenbacks,” while in the secondary bond market the yield on the Spanish ten-year bond declined to 3.858%.