Sentiment improved in Europe thanks to a rally in Asia—with Tokyo reaching historic highs following the weekend election victory of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi—and relief from a late rebound in US-listed semiconductor companies.
The opening sessions of February saw renewed doubts surrounding artificial intelligence—due to high spending with little visibility on profitability and also fears that AI tools could displace traditional software businesses—particularly impacting more speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies and silver.
Sergio Ávila, market analyst at IG, notes that "this week is packed: employment and inflation data in the US, UK GDP, figures from Germany and France, and earnings reports from heavyweights in Europe and on Wall Street."
"In the US, (stock) futures are rising slightly ahead of delayed NFP (US jobs report) and CPI data, as well as a batch of results from Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald's, Coinbase, and other major players."
Upcoming macroeconomic data will be closely scrutinized by investors, who hope the figures will be benign enough to keep expectations of rate cuts in June alive, but not so weak as to cast doubt on consumer demand and corporate profits.
At 08:02 GMT on Monday, Spain's IBEX 35 stock index was up 121.70 points, or 0.67%, at 18,063.70 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of major European stocks advanced 0.23%.
In the banking sector, Santander rose 1.54%, BBVA gained 2.08%, Caixabank advanced 1.29%, Sabadell was up 1.51%, Bankinter climbed 0.90%, and Unicaja Banco added 1.24%.
Among the major non-financial stocks, Telefónica slipped 0.53%, Inditex fell 0.11%, Iberdrola lost 0.15%, Cellnex gained 0.51%, and oil company Repsol dropped 0.51%.
Talgo stood out, rising more than 4% after news broke that Saudi Arabia has ordered 20 new high-speed trains from the Spanish company.
(Reporting by Tomás Cobos, editing by Jorge Ollero Castela)
