Banks push the Ibex below 10,500 points

The Spanish banking sector once again marked the rhythm of the Ibex 35. When it has a bad day, the index also does and it happened once again on Monday. The Ibex closed 0.87% lower at 10,437.7 points, after ending Friday with six consecutive weekly gains.

The wooden spoon for the day was Banco Popular, which tanked 9.61% to 0.73 euros, its lowest price in more than 30 years. The bank suffered after the words of new president Emilio Saracho at a shareholders meeting, where the boss said that its future would have to include either raising capital or selling assets.

The poor performance was also spread to the other banks, with the others all seeing significant losses. In fact, the top four biggest fallers were all banks. Caixabank fell 3% to 3.9 euros, followed by Santander which dropped 1.68%. Sabadell also had a poor day, finishing 1.61% lighter.

Bankia and BBVA fell more than 1% as well. Lastly, Bankinter was the entity which fell the least, but still dropped 0.93% to 7.9 euros. Outside the banking sector, Telefonica also disappointed with a loss of 0.96%. Iberdrola was 0.5% lower and Repsol also fell, by 0.37%. Inditex has been registering light advances all day, but in the end fell 0.21%.

On the other side, IAG led the gains with a rise of 1.4%, encouraged by the figures released by Air France KLM. Viscofan, which gained 1.26%, and Gamesa were the other two companies which joined it in the top of the table.

In the general stock exchange, Sacyr dropped 0.98% after liquidating its total debt of 769 million euros.

OTHER MARKETS

The rest of European markets had a mixed bag on Monday. The FTSE 100 was the only European index that closed higher after a 0.07% rise. On the other hand, the CAC 40 in France fell 0.39% and the DAX 30 in Germany lost only 0.05%.

In forex trading, the euro rose slightly by 0.17% against the dollar, and is now at $1.0607. In commodities, oil prices climbed 1% higher in the case of Brent crude to $55.79. Gold lost 0.16% to $1.255 per ounce.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

José María Rodríguez, technical analyst at Bolsamanía, pointed out that “despite the losses on Monday what we can say is that it’s not a huge setback. It’s a normal correction considering we hit an annual high last Friday.”

According to the analyst, the problem at the moment is the vertical nature of the last upward curve, which could be corrected at any moment.

“Let’s not forget that the last upward line started on 1 March and we have hardly seen any major corrections since that point,” Rodríguez added.