Ibex closes higher by 0.28% but still short of 11,000

The Ibex 35 closed Thursday’s session with light gains of 0.28% supported by the performance of Iberdrola and Telefonica, but it was unable to reach the 11,000 mark. It finished on 10,937 points, with the banks mostly losing ground after starting the day higher following last night’s Federal Reserve minutes pointed towards a June rate rise.

The best performing stocks on Thursday were Iberdrola (1.55%), Acciona (1.51%), Aena (1.47%) and Banco Popular (1.35%). Telefonica ended 0.94% higher. The other heavyweights were fairly flat, Santander rising 0.17%, while Repsol and BBVA fell around 0.10%, and Inditex by 0.33%.

Regarding the biggest losses, ArcelorMittal fell 2.05%, Tecnicas Reunidas (-1.59%), Bankia (-1.24%) and CaixaBank (0,94%) also had bad days.

Other European stocks finished mostly in the red, including the DAX 30 and CAC 40 around 0.20%, while the PSI 20 in Portugal scaled 0.5% to be the best performing market.

Oil was the most salient factor on Thirsday however, falling around 1% after OPEC decided to extend production cuts of the commodity for another nine months, as expected. According to analysts, it is a clear example of “buy with the rumour, sell with the news”. At the close, Brent crude was at $53.35 with a 0.82% drop, while West Texas was at $50.83 with a loss of 1.05%.

“This was a perfect buy the rumour and sell the news scenario,” said Naeem Aslam from Thinkmarkets. “Traders have paid so much attention to one thing which was the duration of the oil production cut. That is the least important thing in our eyes, because there are far greater elements which are more important than this. We do believe, that the OPEC does not recognise the very fact that the US shale oil is an animal of its own kind and the only solution to balance the supply and demand equation is by sitting together on the same table and come up with a cohesive strategy.”

In relation to the macro data of the day, Spanish GDP grew 0.8% and put together a streak of fourteen consecutive gains. UK GDP rose 0.2% in the first quarter, below the 0.3% expected.

Donald Trump met with European leaders on Thursday during a Nato summit on his first overseas tour. The encounter comes during an era of political tension in the US and with Trump under constant pressure for his alleged links with Russia.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Bolsamanía’s José María Rodríguez points out that “despite the slight gains of Thursday we can say that very little has changed. The problem is that we currently find ourselves inside a range of prices understood to be between 10,380 points and 11,200 points. Only when the price breaks either side will it give an indication of what will happen after that.”

He added that “meanwhile it remains part of a corrective phase which is consolidating the last upward drive, which took our index from 10,200 to 11,185 points. Remember that if 90% of the stocks on the market do not fill their upward trend we will have little sign of weakness.”