The Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 extended on Monday the slight profit-taking started on Friday, in a session with signs of transition as investors await an important macroeconomic indicator from the United States.

After last week's signals that point to the start of interest rate cuts in May by the Federal Reserve, on Tuesday investors will analyze the US CPI for February.

According to a Reuters poll, the overall consumer price index could rise 0.4% month-on-month and 3.1% year-on-year, while the core (which excludes energy and unprocessed food) could rise 0.3% month-on-month and 3.7% year-on-year.

Otherwise, markets remain on the lookout for geopolitical risks, as Israel's war against Gaza continues to fester and the dangers of Russia's invasion of Ukraine loom.

"Although we believe that the risk-return trade-off remains attractive in an environment where the economic cycle is improving and where rates should have peaked, we believe that there are several risk factors that could determine better entry points for stocks," said the Renta 4 brokerage firm.

These analysts highlighted as main concerns "1) Further adjustment of rate cut expectations by the market, depending on how macro data evolves; 2) Geopolitical risks with upside implications for inflation (situation in the Middle East, Red Sea); 3) CRE (commercial real estate) in the US".

Meanwhile, at 08:05 GMT on Monday, the selective Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 fell 29.40 points, or 0.29%, to 10,276.30 points, after rising 2.4% last week, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks fell 0.47%.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 1.08%, BBVA fell 0.69%, Caixabank gave up 0.46%, Sabadell fell 1.38%, Bankinter dropped 0.19%, and Unicaja Banco lost 0.96%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.26%, Inditex fell 0.74%, Iberdrola gained 0.73%, Cellnex fell 0.09%, and the oil company Repsol lost 0.55%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos; edited by Javi West Larrañaga)