MADRID, 21 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Ibex 35 registered an increase of 1% at midday this Thursday, reaching 10,859.5 points – the highest of June 2017 -, after the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) decided yesterday – with the European market already closed – maintain rates in the target range of between 5.25% and 5.5%, at their highest since January 2001.

The Fed has thus kept interest rates intact for the fifth consecutive meeting, while the central projection of the issuing institute indicates that interest rates will be between 4.6% and 5.1% in 2024 compared to the December projection of 4.4% and 4.9%. For 2025, the forecast is for the range to be between 3.4% and 4.1%, when the previous forecast showed a range of 3.1% and 3.9%.

This Thursday, it is the turn of the Bank of England (BoE) and the market expects interest rates to remain at 5.25% for the sixth consecutive meeting.

On the macroeconomic agenda, the PMI indicator of economic activity in the eurozone has been better than expected in March and has been on the edge of expansionary terrain thanks to the rebound in the services sector and despite the decline in manufacturing.

For its part, Germany’s activity PMI in March has also improved more than anticipated – although it remains in recessionary territory – thanks to the growth in services and despite the fact that the manufacturing sector has worsened when an improvement was expected.

In the afternoon, the PMI activity indicators will be released in the United States, as well as the weekly unemployment claims, the business outlook from the Philadelphia Fed for March, and the sales of used homes in February.

In Spain, the Spanish Public Treasury has placed 6,065 million euros this Thursday in a new auction of bonds and obligations, within the expected medium range, and has done so by slightly raising the three-year profitability, which is close to 3%, according to data from the Bank of Spain.

Likewise, in Spain it has been published that the sale and purchase of homes registered a decrease of 2.1% in January compared to the previous year, up to a total of 54,346, as reported by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). With this monthly decrease, home sales continue to decline for 12 months after having closed 2023 with a drop of 9.7% compared to 2022, when they grew by 14.8%.

In the business field, Iberdrola has reported that it foresees gross investments of around 41,000 million euros in the period 2024-2026 to achieve a net profit of between 5,600-5,800 million euros at the end of the period, according to the figures presented on the occasion of its Capital Markets Day held in London.

At that event, Iberdrola announced, among other matters, that it obtained capital gains of 1.1 billion euros with the closing of the sale of 55% of its business in Mexico for about 6.2 billion dollars (about 5.8 billion euros).

Airtificial recorded net losses of 4.3 million euros in 2023, which represents an improvement of 43% compared to the ‘red numbers’ of 7.4 million registered in the previous year, as reported this Thursday by the company to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), which claims to exceed its forecasts.

The Dia Group’s subsidiary in Brazil, Dia Brasil, has submitted a request for “judicial recovery”, a restructuring process under Brazilian law with the aim of trying to overcome its current economic and financial situation, as reported by the company to CNMV.

Fluidra agreed this Thursday in its board of directors session to propose to the general meeting of shareholders the distribution of a dividend of 0.55 euros per share charged to the 2023 results, which is equivalent to about 105 million euros.

Thus, in the middle section of the negotiation, the biggest increases within the Ibex 35 were recorded by Grifols (3.05%), Cellnex (3.04%), Merlín Properties (2.84%), Amadeus (2.32 %) and BBVA (2.28%), while the ‘red lanterns’ were Bankinter (-1.94%), Rovi (-0.95%), Enagás (-0.9%), Banco Sabadell (- 0.87%) and Repsol (-0.62%).

Most of the main European stock markets also opted for advances: Milan added 0.12%; Frankfurt 0.41% and London 1%, while Paris lost 0.12%.

At the same time, the price of a barrel of Brent quality oil, a reference for the Old Continent, fell by 0.43%, to 85.57 dollars, while that of Texas stood at 80.9 dollars. 0.52% less.

In the foreign exchange market, the price of the euro against the dollar fell by 0.14%, to 1.0907 ‘greenbacks’, while in the debt market the interest required on the 10-year Spanish bond fell to 3.199% after subtracting four basis points, with the risk premium (the differential with the German bond) at 80.7 points.