Seven from seven: The Ibex on Christmas rally and conquers 9,300

Seven from seven. The Ibex 35 is enjoying the traditional Christmas rally in the stock exchange after rising for the last seven sessions. The impressive streak in the short term has seen it surpass the 9,300 mark but fall just short of the highs of April. The index closed with with an advance of 1.58% at 9,331.30.

The Ibex continued the success of last week, where it finished 6% higher, in anticipation of this week's US Federal Reserve decision on interest rates across the Atlantic. It has been over a year since the last time they were raised, and on Wednesday they are expected to rise to between 0.5% and 0.75%.

On Tuesday, Mediaset (5.97%) was the best performer on the exchange after Vivendi bought 3% of the company and once again demonstrated its intention to increase its stake to a range of between 10% and 20%. Another stock which registered strong gains was Acciona (5.5%), followed by IAG (2.98%), Gamesa (2.94%) and Red Electrica (2.5%).

Among the heavyweights, Telefonica was the highest riser, with a rise of 2.42%. The telecoms company has been one of the drivers of the Ibex during this impressive rally. In addition, Inditex (+2,3%), Iberdrola (+1,6%) BBVA (+1,59%) and Banco Santander (+1,23%) also posted strong showings.

In Italy Unicredit announced on Tuesday that it planned to raise capital to the tune of 13 billion euros in order to clean up its balance sheet, as part of a strategy between now and 2019. On Monday, Unicredit announced the sale of Pioneer a Amundi, after selling a stake in Bank Pekao last week.

New prime minister Paolo Gentiloni has revealed his new cabinet ministers, keeping the majority of those which were there under Matteo Renzi. The European Commission reiterated on Sunday that it was available to discuss options for Italian banks and state help which it could be afforded.

From a macro point of view, GDP figures for Germany were released, rising 0.1% during the month of November. In Spain, GDP remained at its inter-annual rate of 0.7% during the month, while that of the UK hit a high of more than two years.

Although the International Monetary Fund raised its forecasts for Spain, at the same time it has asked for further reforms. Its experts have asked for a gradual consolidation, by raising special taxes and reforming financial autonomy.

The international institution showed that the Spanish economy will grow by 3.2% in 2016, the same as in 2015, while the growth of GDP will slow to 2.3% in 2017.

"An impressive show of strength from the index after the minimums of the past week and a rise of 10%," said Bolsamania technical analyst Jose Maria Rodriguez. "The important thing on Tuesday is that the index finished going above the upper boundary of 9,255 points."