Investors will be especially attentive to the meeting of the CaixaBank and Bankia boards
The Ibex and the rest of European stock exchanges will return this Thursday to the red numbers (futures: -0.9%) after the Federal Reserve (Fed) suffered yesterday from "lack of concrete measures", says Michael Hewson, director of analysis from CMC Markets. This, after the Spanish selective exceeded 7,100 points last day thanks to the 8% rise in Inditex after publishing figures.
"There were no real surprises at the meeting of the Federal Reserve, which promised to keep rates firmly anchored until 2023, or at least until inflation is above 2% for quite some time. That is certainly an ambitious bar for its new policy of inflation targeting, given that in the last 20 years the core PCE has only been above 2% twice in the last decade, for a short period in 2012, and for most of 2018, when the bank was in through a series of rate hikes, "explains this analyst.
"With the double objective of also wanting to achieve maximum employment, it is clear that the Federal Reserve wanted to send a message that rates are going nowhere not only in the short term, but also in the medium term. Of course, that does not mean that this new policy is going to be more successful than the old one, and the general market reaction more or less reflects that reality, "adds Hewson.
Ultimately, this analyst acknowledges that "there was not much else the Fed could do given the challenges facing the US economy." In this sense, it is worth noting the August retail sales data that was released this Wednesday, with a rise of 0.6%, below expectations.
The Bank of Japan has also left its monetary policy unchanged this morning and this Thursday it is the turn of the Bank of England. In recent months, there has been a lot of talk about the possibility of it leaning towards negative rates.
In the macro calendar of the day, the CPI of the euro zone for August also stands out. Meanwhile, from a business point of view, investors will not lose sight of the meeting of the boards of CaixaBank and Bankia, which will be held this afternoon and in which, except for major surprise, the merger will be approved.