Ibex closes out a week best forgotten with a drop of 2.4%

Airport operator AENA was weakest, losing 3.76%, followed by DIA (-2.63%) and Bankinter (-1.8%). On the positive side of the ledger meanwhile, Viscofan (1.2%) was again the main beneficiary of the 'risk off' mood in the stockmarket.

IAG was also lower - although its shares managed to recover from an early sharp slide - hobbled by news of a data breach at British Airways.

'Blue chip' banks such as Santander (-1.19%) and BBVA (-0.92%) added their weight to the selling as investors continued to tread cautiously around the two given their exposure to emerging markets.

Telefonica on the other hand managed to gain 0.49% as did Inditex (0.64%), with investors in the latter awaiting the retailer's latest update, scheduled for next week, after having endured nine consecutive sessions of share price falls.

Out on the Mercado Continuo, Adveo extended the previous day's bounce after Staple Solutions offered to lighten its debt load.

PharmaMar (+0.38%) also managed to swim against the current after announcing that it was looking to raise funds ahead of a float in the US.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

With the Ibex having shed roughly 6.0% of it value over the prior two weeks, Bolsamania.com's chief technical analyst, José María Rodríguez, cautioned that "despite a bounce here and there, there are yet no signs that the current leg lower for stocks has been exhausted".

Indeed, Rodriguez said Spain's top-flight index may be headed lower still, to 9,000 or 8,700 points even.

But first, a so-called 'pull back' to technical resistance in the 9,300 to 9,330 point area was still possible, adding that it was a similar story on the rest of the Continent.

"Futures contracts for the Dax and Eurostoxx 50 breached technical support last Wednesday (the August lows) and here too it is possible that we will see a pull-back towards resistance, most likely followed by a move further lower still, possibly back to their March lows, which coincides with the bottom part of the trading range that has been in place since the start of 2017."

As an aside, he noted how during the week Telefonica shares had fallen back as far - exactly - to their post-Brexit lows, at €6.66.

Below that, a drop to the 2012 lows at €5.78 will turn into their next most likely stop.

US IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The market spotlight was without a doubt on the August non-farm payrolls data in the States, which revealed job gains of 201,000, with the rate of unemployment steady at 3.9% and wage growth accelerating to its fastest clip since November 2009 at up by 2.9% year-on-year (consensus: 2.7%).

In the background meantime, over the week just ended it was all about NAFTA and the Trump administrations' threat of fresh tariffs on a further $200.0bn-worth of Chinese made goods.

Also in the headlines on the other side of the Pond was a New York Times article decrying what it said was a chaotic situation within the West Wing.