Ibex signs off the week with its best session of 2017 so far

The Ibex 35 finished the week negative, but the fall has been almost wiped out after the index finished the week with an impressive showing in its best display of 2017 so far. It closed 1.11% higher to 9,511.6 points. The banking sector was one of the main plus points of the day.

BBVA and CaixaBank were particularly impressive, only coming behind Mediaset and Dia while Técnicas Reunidas, Amadeus, Cellnex, Endesa and Merlin Properties were the only stocks to fall.

Mediaset was the best performing stock in the Ibex, with a rise of 3.35% to 11.26 euros, despite registering significant falls this week. The telecoms company's good performance spread to its competitor Atresmedia, which rose 9.19% to 10.69 euros after Citi improved its forecasts.

Returning to the Ibex 35, the second highest riser of the day was DIA (2.54% to 4.7 euros). However, the rises of CaixaBank (2.36% to 3.34 euros) and BBVA (1.93% to 6.23 euros) must be noted as they pushed on the gains for the index. Banco Santander rose 1.72% to 5.1 euros, despite Jefferies alerting that its list of delinquencies was growing.

On the fallers side, Técnicas Reunidas, which fell 2.17% to 37.6 euros, was the worst performer of the day. Amadeus, after falling 0.75%, and Endesa by 0.3% accompanied it in the wrong side of the table.

In the general stock exchange, in addition to Atresmedia, Adolfo Dominguez published its financial results for 2016. The company gained 14.33% to 3.91 euros, after posting that sales had increased 1.4% compared with the previous year.

OTHER MARKETS

The green was extended to other European markets. The Cac 40 in France rose 1.2%. In this index, Renault fell 2.89% after being investigated for emissions cheating technology. The Dax 30 in Germany gained 0.94% and the FTSE 100 put together its 14th consecutive day in positive, by advancing 0.62%.

With regard to automakers, Fiat Chrysler Auto bounced back 4.61% to 9.2 euros after bombing 16% on Thursday after being accused of cheating emissions on 104,000 vehicles in the US.

Turning to the foreign exchange market, the euro keeps rising slightly against the dollar. The eurozone currency hit record lows at the beginning of the year, but on Friday registered gains of 0.13% towards 1.0626 dollars.

In Spain, December's CPI increased nine points off the back of gas prices. In Europe, on Thursday the minutes for the ECB's December meeting were published. They reflected that a few members of the board preferred an extension to the QE programme by 80 billion per month.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

José María Rodríguez, technical analyst at Bolsamanía, pointed out that the interesting thing about Friday was that the Ibex 35 closed relatively close to the upper mark of 9,550 points, leaving a small opening for the lower mark of 9,407. "In fact, it seems as if it has the ability to attack that upper reference at any point," the analyst said.

"We will have a new sign of strength that would be the entrance to a new high movement which could realistically achieve 10,000 points," Rodríguez added.