Ibex bounces back

7 February 2008

MADRID – Stock markets fulfilled their ritual of rebounding after a hard fall, leaving investors feeling slightly calmer, especially in Spain, where the Ibex 35 regained 13,000 points, situating itself above the all-important psychological support level.

The select index added 1.74 percent, the biggest gain among European markets after the biggest fall the previous day. The biggest recovery was seen in some of the index’s big shares, which left medium and small stocks by the wayside.

In the current climate, many analysts are watching closely both share prices and volume data in a bid to determine how much of a recovery to expect and to gauge how much risk investors are willing to take on. Among the big stocks, Santander, which publishes full-year earnings results today, Telefónica and Iberdrola appear to be being favoured by investors looking for what they hope will be safe bets. In terms of volume, all the signs indicate that any movement is likely to be short lived and there is still plenty of room for stocks to fall further even though in some cases dividend earnings have hit 5 percent.

Turnover fell to EUR 5.240 billion yesterday, around EUR 1.5 billion less than the previous day, of which EUR 4.817 billion was accounted for by open operations.

On the other side of the Atlantic, US markets received word that non-agricultural labour productivity increased by 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter after rising 6 percent in the third, while labour costs rose 2.1 percent following a 1.9 percent rise in the previous quarter.

Today, investors will be focused on the European Central Bank meeting, although, with inflation still high, few analysts expect a cut in interest rates despite the increasingly gloomy economic outlook.

Subject: Spanish news