The Ibex 35 falls below the 17,400-point mark, awaiting developments in the Middle East and the price of oil.

The Spanish stock market closed Wednesday with a slight loss of 0.53%, at 17,351.90 points. It was another day in which investors remained focused on the conflict in the Middle East and the evolution of oil prices, but other data also played a role, such as Inditex's record results and the US inflation figure, which remained at 2.4%. The Ibex 35, Spain's main index, closed Tuesday's session with a 3.05% gain, reaching 17,445 points. In the first minutes of trading, Inditex, Spain's largest listed company, showed the strongest performance. The company founded by Amancio Ortega surged 5.11% after announcing a profit of €6.22 billion for its 2025 fiscal year, a 6% increase compared to the previous year, marking its fourth consecutive year of record results. Despite strong gains at the start of the day, the textile group closed the session with a slight increase of 0.53%. The other major European stock exchanges experienced more significant declines on Wednesday. London's FTSE 100 fell 0.56%, while Paris's CAC40 dropped 0.19%, and Frankfurt's DAX suffered the biggest loss, declining 1.59%. Asian markets, meanwhile, continued their upward trend. In Japan, the Nikkei rose 1.43%; South Korea's Kospi climbed 1.40%, and the only index to close in the red was the Hang Seng, which registered a slight decline of 0.24%. Oil is expected to remain around $90.

After closing Tuesday at $87.60 per barrel, the price of Brent crude, the European benchmark, remained around $90 on Wednesday. However, it is still far from the $118 it reached last Monday, as investors await confirmation of the de-escalation of the conflict that US President Donald Trump has been announcing for days. Nevertheless, it remains above the $72 mark it held before the attack on Iran. Meanwhile, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, the US benchmark, is above $85 per barrel.

The volatility in oil prices is due to the blockade Iran is imposing on the Strait of Hormuz in response to the bombings. Located between Oman and Iran, the Strait of Hormuz is the world's main oil and gas shipping route, carrying about one in five barrels of oil, and any disruption to this waterway has an immediate impact on the global economy. In practice, the strait acts as a gateway through which almost all the oil and gas leaving the Persian Gulf for the rest of the world must pass. Exports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran—the region's major producers—all pass through it. Most of the volumes transiting Hormuz lack alternative routes out of the region. The flow of oil through this strait averaged 20 million barrels per day in 2024, approximately 20% of global consumption of liquid petroleum products. Furthermore, approximately one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade also transited through the Strait of Hormuz in 2024, primarily originating from Qatar.

Bond yields are moving upwards

Debt interest rates are also fluctuating due to the inflationary pressure accompanying rising energy prices. The 10-year US Treasury bond is trading above 4.20%. In Europe, the Spanish bond is yielding around 3.40%, and the bund German inflation surpasses 2.90%.

As for the currency market, the euro has fallen back below the $1.16 level it had only just recovered yesterday. Gold, meanwhile, remains around $5,200 an ounce.

The Euribor, which Tuesday saw the biggest daily increase in almost 20 yearsOn this day, it lost approximately the same percentage that it gained and stands at 2.369%.