After closing the previous session at its highest level since January 2010 and regaining 12,000 points, the IBEX 35 showed a slight downward bias at Thursday's opening, as investors await comments from the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting.

The Spanish stock index is up 18% so far this year and could seal its fifth consecutive day in positive territory, in a context of optimism about monetary easing in the Eurozone.

According to a Reuters poll of analysts, the ECB is likely to lower rates again on Thursday, based on the argument that inflation in the euro zone is increasingly under control and the economy is stagnating.

This would be the first consecutive rate cut in 13 years and would allow the ECB to shift its focus from cooling euro zone inflation to protecting economic growth, which has lagged that of the U.S. over the past two years.

"Maybe (Christine Lagarde, ECB president) doesn't sound as 'dovish' (supportive of easing) ahead of the 2025 downgrades as many expect because inflation is going to rebound from the current +1.8% in light of the fact that core is at +2.7% and, however weak Germany is and however many public debt problems France has, room for action must be left to deal with that rebound in inflation," Bankinter analysts said in a post on Telegram.

"The reasonable thing to do would be for Lagarde not to make any 'dovish' commitments with her words."

On the international macroeconomic front, a new announcement from the Chinese government did not quell market fears that Beijing's measures will not be enough to revive the economy.

The Chinese government said it would expand a "white list" of housing projects eligible for financing and increase bank lending for such developments to 4 trillion yuan ($562 billion), with the aim of shoring up the flagging property market.

Analysts at Renta 4 called the lack of new stimulus a "disappointment" in their daily report, which weighed on commodity and equity markets in Asia.

Otherwise, during the session, investors will be looking closely at September retail sales and industrial production data for the United States, as well as weekly jobless claims, for their possible impact on the Federal Reserve's upcoming monetary decisions. They will also be on the lookout for construction sector figures, to be released on Friday.

Against this backdrop, Spain's selective IBEX 35 stock index was up 0.07% to 11,987.9 points at 07:52 GMT on Thursday, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.20%.

In the banking sector, Santander advanced 0.86%, BBVA gained 0.67%, Caixabank rose 0.74%, Sabadell gained 0.81%, Bankinter gained 0.16% and Unicaja Banco added 0.27%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.04%, Inditex advanced 0.11%, Iberdrola gained 0.28%, Cellnex fell 0.14%, and the oil company Repsol lost 0.09%.

Outside the large stocks of the Spanish benchmark index, Talgo stood out, after confirmation of the interest of the Basque group Sidenor in launching a partial or total offer for the capital of the train manufacturer.

(Information by Mireia Merino; editing by Tomás Cobos)