Ibex breaks its losing streak and regains 9,400
Bank of England maintained interest rates after meeting
- Caixabank rose 3% after its earnings report in a good day for the banks
- Deutsche Bank fell 5% after publishing financial results
The Ibex 35 broke its losing streak of the last five sessions and closed with a rise of 0.81% on Thursday, allowing it to cross the border of 9,400, to 9,406.40.
One of the protagonists of the day was Caixabank (+2.94%). The Catalan bank earned 28.6% more than in 2015, reaching a figure of 1.047 billion euros of net profit.
The financial sector is still one of the main characters today, owing to Banco Santander's rise of 1.59% after a positive rating from UBS. In negative, BBVA (-0.99%) was one of the worst performers after receiving several negative recommendations after its results. The worst performer was IAG, which dropped 2.04%.
In addition, the best performer of the day was Acerinox (+4.45%), followed by ArcelorMittal (+2.86%), thanks to a report from Goldman Sachs about the European steel sector, in which analysts were optimistic about its future.
In Europe, Deutsche Bank was the villain after failing to reach expectations for its quarterly results. The bank fell 5% after showing net losses of 1.4 billion euros.
WEEK OF THE CENTRAL BANKS
In a week full of financial results, central banks have also been in focus. After the Bank of Japan decision to maintain rates at -0.1%, there were no surprises in the US. The Fed maintained interest at between 0.5%-0.75%.
In the UK, the Bank of England maintained their rate of 0.25% also. Since it decided to reduce rates from 0.5% to 0.25%, there has been no substantial changes in its monetary policy.
In the macroeconomic setting, unemployment figures for Spain were released on Thursday. The figure rose in January by 57,257 compared with the previous month.
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
"After three sessions of little change, on Thursday we eventually have the opposite. We finished towards the highs of the day. This movement was produced thanks to the performances of Gas Natural, ArcelorMittal and Acerinox, especially with the support of Santander and Telefonica. Meanwhile BBVA goes the other way and remains the weakest link in the financial sector," said José María Rodríguez, analyst at Bolsamanía.
"The high point of this week is close to the important support levels of 9,250 points, which makes us think that further rises are likely. At least towards the resistance with which we started the week, of 9,504 points. Even higher is more important to head towards 9,550."
