Investors remain cautious ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration in January and awaiting further indications on the US Federal Reserve's (Fed) monetary policy.
Stock market activity is conditioned by the Christmas holidays, with a shortened session on Tuesday -- the market will close at 13:00 GMT -- and a full shutdown on December 25 and 26. In addition to the January 1 holiday, this festive calendar significantly reduces stock market trading.
Against this backdrop, and after the strong advance of equities in 2024, Bankinter analysts recommend caution for the last days of the year.
"When activity slows down and, without objective causes, the market rebounds, it is advisable to be especially careful. Bond IRRs have risen (...), which should hurt valuations, stock markets," they said on their Telegram channel.
"We should be a bit more cautious and expect less from the coming quarters, until the price adjustment is complete and inflation/rates clarify where they are going," they added.
Tuesday's trading day will bring barely a couple of secondary macroeconomic indicators in the US (the Redbook retail sales index and the Richmond Fed activity survey), so we will have to wait until the first week of 2025 for more clues on GDP and price developments in the major economies.
Against this backdrop, at 08:02 GMT on Tuesday, the selective Spanish stock market index IBEX 35 was up 48.10 points, or 0.42%, to 11,483.80 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.27%.
So far this year, the Spanish index has accumulated a gain of 13.68%.
In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.65%, BBVA barely changed, Caixabank advanced 0.66%, Sabadell gained 0.88%, Bankinter gained 0.30%, and Unicaja Banco rose 0.24%.
Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 0.05%, Inditex advanced 0.40%, Iberdrola gained 0.34%, Cellnex gained 0.43%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.67%.
(Information by Tomás Cobos; editing by Javi West Larrañaga)