Spain’s Ibex-35 index opened September on a slight upward trend, a few hours before the release of key job creation data for the United States, in a climate of anticipation fueled by the unexpected recovery of industrial activity in 2019.
The job numbers, due to be released in the United States on Friday, will provide clues to the next decisions central banks will make to fight inflation.
The US Federal Reserve expects signs of a slowdown in the job market, although policymakers prefer a soft landing.
“We could see a still tight labor market, with +170k non-farm payrolls (vs. +187k previously), which would keep the unemployment rate at a minimum of 3.5% and awaiting wage developments where pressure continues (+ 4.3%). vs. +4.4% year-on-year),” the Renta 4 broker said in its daily analysis note.
“We recall that the Fed believes a slowdown in the labor market is necessary for inflation to return to its 2% target,” she added.
For its part, data released in China showed that factory activity in the world’s second-largest economy was back on an expansionary trajectory in August. However, enthusiasm has been dampened by other recent data, and it remains to be seen whether the measures Beijing has started to prop up various sectors, including real estate, of major importance in the country will be enough.
Also released in Friday’s session will be the August manufacturing PMI for Spain and the eurozone, as well as the US unemployment rate and ISM manufacturing.
In this regard, Spain’s Ibex-35 selective stocks market rose 6.30 points, or 0.07%, to 9,512.20 points as of 07:05 GMT on Friday, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks fell 0.01%.
For the entire week, the Ibex-35 pointed to a 1.86% gain.
In the banking sector, Santander lost 0.71%, BBVA gained 0.50%, Caixabank rose 0.05%, Sabadell rose 0.56%, Bankinter rose 0.44%, and Unicaja Banco rose 0.78%.
Among the major non-financials, Telefónica was up 0.13%, Inditex was up 0.06%, Iberdrola was down 0.46%, Cellnex was up 0.20%, and oil major Repsol was up 2.14%.
