Spain's Ibex-35 stock index opened higher Thursday as investors tried to gauge when the US Federal Reserve is likely to start cutting interest rates, while Fed officials weighed Tuesday's inflation data.

Investor expectations that the US central bank will cut interest rates soon and deeply have been besieged by a string of data that has underscored the resilience of the US economy and labor market, with data this week showing persistent inflation.

Against that backdrop, Fed Vice Chairman for Oversight Michael Barr on Wednesday backed the "cautious approach" to cutting rates advocated by central bank chief Jerome Powell, while Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee cautioned against waiting too long.

On the macroeconomic front, attention now turns to US retail sales data, due at 1330 GMT, and producer price index figures, due on Friday. At least three other senior Fed officials will speak this week.

In Spain, the year-on-year inflation rate harmonized with the European Union rose from 3.3% in December to 3.5%, according to final data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

Earlier, the United Kingdom reported that its economy entered recession in the second half of 2023 after contracting by a worse-than-expected 0.3%, as did Japan, which posted an unexpected 0.4% decline in GDP in the October-December period and lost its title as the world's third largest economy to Germany.

At 0808 GMT on Thursday, Spain's selective Ibex-35 stock market index was up 41.10 points, or 0.41%, to 9,957.70 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.53%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.27%, BBVA fell 0.20%, Caixabank advanced 0.73%, Sabadell gained 0.43%, Bankinter gained 0.80%, and Unicaja Banco rose 0.38%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.62%, Inditex advanced 0.26%, Iberdrola gained 0.42%, Cellnex gained 0.52%, and the oil company Repsol lost 0.90%.

(Information by Benjamín Mejías Valencia; edited by José Muñoz)