The Spanish IBEX 35 stock index advanced moderately on Monday, at the start of a week full of macroeconomic data that investors will analyze closely, given the possibility that they may justify further interest rate cuts.

After the large rate cut by the Federal Reserve (Fed) last week, which could push the European Central Bank (ECB) to accelerate the easing of its monetary policy, there will be a lot of interest in the indicators published this week.

These include PMI activity surveys on both sides of the Atlantic (Monday); the IFO survey of economic expectations in Germany (Tuesday); the German GFK survey, weekly employment data and revised US GDP (Thursday); and inflation figures for France, Germany and Spain, business confidence indices in the eurozone, and the US consumer deflator or PCE index (Friday).

Renta 4 highlights this last indicator, which in its opinion "could show that inflation is not so contained (slight rebound expected)".

These analysts point out that the trend in European stock markets was boosted on Monday by the expectation that China may announce new stimuli tomorrow, with the "focus of the potential new measures (...) on boosting confidence and private consumption".

At 07:05 GMT on Monday, Spain's selective IBEX 35 stock index was up 26.00 points, or 0.22%, to 11,779.30 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.08%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.42%, BBVA fell 0.16%, Caixabank advanced 0.04%, Sabadell gained 0.95%, Bankinter gained 0.20%, and Unicaja Banco rose 0.17%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.30%, Inditex gave up 0.08%, Iberdrola gained 0.44%, Cellnex gained 0.59%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.56%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos; edited by Mireia Merino)