The Spanish stock index IBEX 35 opened with a slight increase on Wednesday and was aiming to string together a streak of four consecutive days of gains, although the advance was contained by the poor reception to the forecasts of the Dutch ASML.

Europe's biggest tech forecast lower-than-expected 2025 sales and said that despite a boom in AI-related chips, other parts of the semiconductor market have been weaker for longer than expected.

The news, which weighed on European tech stocks, added to concerns about the situation in the Middle East and investors' doubts about Thursday's comments on the pace of monetary easing by the European Central Bank.

Bankinter analysts noted on their Telegram channel that the ASML announcement "will likely be another opportunity to buy on weakness, but not immediately because the damage from these types of events is usually spread out over several days."

"Even after this, the balance of Oct. stock markets is more or less flat (...), which is the tone we estimate the 4Q as a whole will offer, strained by the US elections and Israel's retaliation against Iran, whenever it happens in whatever version it happens. We have already experienced an episode similar to that of ASML with Nvidia in the past, not so long ago, and in the end it recovers because the dynamism of its results prevails", they added.

The escalation of the war in Lebanon, following new Israeli air strikes, was also felt in the oil market, which recorded a slight rise, after concerns about demand caused the market to fall to its lowest levels since the beginning of October in the previous session.

Meanwhile, markets remain on hold ahead of the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy update on Thursday, which is expected to cut rates by 25 basis points (bps). However, the main event of the day will be the subsequent appearance of ECB President Christine Lagarde, which investors will be watching closely for signals on the path of rate cuts to be adopted by the central bank in the final months of the year.

On the macroeconomic front, there will be interest in the indicators of the coming days in the United States, due to their possible impact on the Fed's decisions, including the monthly retail sales data and the weekly unemployment report, to be published on Thursday, and the construction sector figures on Friday.

Against this backdrop, Spain's selective IBEX 35 stock market index was up 5.80 points, or 0.05%, to 11,936.00 points at 07:07 GMT on Wednesday, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was down 0.34%.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 0.46%, BBVA fell 0.55%, Caixabank advanced 0.44%, Sabadell fell 0.51%, Bankinter was little changed and Unicaja Banco was up 0.09%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.23%, Inditex advanced 0.89%, Iberdrola gained 0.57%, Cellnex fell 0.41%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.34%.

Outside the IBEX 35, Talgo stood out, with an advance of more than 4% after reports that point to the interest of the Sidenor group in taking a stake in the train manufacturer together with the Basque Government.

(Information by Mireia Merino; editing by Tomás Cobos)