- Banking sector falls on back of uncertainty in Italy
- European markets all finished red on Monday as referendum approaches
- Oil prices rise ahead of OPEC meeting
The Ibex starts the week in the red. The banking sector in the Spanish market closed with losses. Specifically, the index conceded 0.64% and now sits at 8,619 points. The bad behaviour of the bank was not exclusive to the Spanish stock exchange, as at the European level all markets fell due to the uncertainty surrounding the referendum on constitutional change in Italy.
- 0,317€
- 0,00%
- 11.656,600
- 0,39%
Banco Popular once again picked up the wooden spoon in the Ibex session with a fall of 7.78% to 0.77 euros. It has fallen over 70% over the year. The bank has dropped to its lowest levels since 1987 in the middle of a strong volume. At the close 80.3m shares of Popular had been taken on, despite information from Infobolsa which says it is limited to 29.3m titles.
The four stocks accompanying it were all banks also. Banco Sabadell dropped 2.79% to 1.15 euros. Bankia also had a bad day by falling 2.38% to 0.82 euros. The company is in the news this Monday because of judge Fernando Andreu's decision not to ask for testimony from Julio Segura, Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez and Fernando Restoy, among others.
CaixaBank fell 2.02% to 2.70 euros. Banco Santander was the fifth worst stock, falling 1.59% to 4.51 euros. The Supreme Court confirmed the sanction of one million euros to the entity after a "very serious" error regarding money laundering.
Endesa led the advances with a rise of 1.86% to 19.75 euros. It was followed by Aena which regained 1.73% to 129.20 euros. The third value in the list was Acciona, which rose 0.79% to 64.80 euros.
In the rest of the European markets, red was the predominant colour. The German DAX 30 fell 1.09%, and the CAC 40 in France fell 0.88%, a day after François Fillon won the presidential primary race. Fillon will likely face off against the far-right National Front's candidate Marine Le Pen.
The FTSE 100 in London closed with a fall of 0.6%. The European Central Bank president Mario Draghi spoke about Brexit on Monday, saying that a less open UK would affect it more so than European nations. "If, in the long run, the risk of a less open UK economy in terms of trade, migration and foreign direct investment were to materialise, there would be a negative impact on innovation and competition and, thus, productivity and potential output," he said.
The other big winner this week is likely to be oil. The OPEC will hold its long-awaited meeting in Vienna this Wednesday, where a production cut is expected to be announced. At the time of closing in European markets the European reference of Brent crude was up by 2%, just above 48 dollars per barrel.
European stocks are still waiting on the weekend's referendum in Italy in which the population will vote for or against constitutional reforms in the country. Prime minister Matteo Renzi has proposed a series of measures to make Italy a more governable place, but the opposition say that it gives Renzi too much power.
Bolsamanía technical analyst José María Rodríguez pointed out that Monday's session was relatively quiet until we entered the latter part of the day.
"The banks, which spent most of the day quoting small falls, accelerated towards the end. The same also happened with Telefonica, which started the session with a strong rise. From there however, like most of Europe, they ended up on the wrong side of the board," said Rodríguez.