The Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 fell back on Monday and saw the psychological barrier of 10,300 points recede for the time being, on a day in which investors are likely to be reluctant to take risky positions in view of the numerous important references in the coming days.

After Friday's strong US employment report dampened enthusiasm for interest rate cuts in the first part of 2024, markets will be watching for signals this week on the next steps of the major central banks.

On the macroeconomic front, data releases include US November CPI (Tuesday) and retail sales (Thursday), Germany's ZEW survey (Tuesday) and CPI in several European countries, as well as PMI business surveys on both sides of the Atlantic (Friday).

In addition, there will be numerous monetary events, with the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday - with no expectations of a rate change, so the focus will be on the forward-looking comments of its leaders - and the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, Norges Bank and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on Thursday.

"We share the market's view that rates have peaked, but not the expectations of an early and sharp drop in intervention rates, insofar as we believe that it is not yet possible to claim victory in terms of controlling inflation," said analysts at Renta 4.

"We will see if the expectations discounted by the market (4 or 5 rate cuts in 2024 for the Fed and the ECB, with the first at the end of 1Q24 or early 2Q24, and 3 cuts for the BoE with the first in 2Q24) are premature (our opinion), which should lead to speeches by the three central banks trying to soften these forecasts, moving back in time the start of rate cuts and their intensity," they added.

This outlook of lower hopes for rate cuts has been reflected in fixed income yields, which rose on Friday and were little changed on Monday.

After a streak of six consecutive weeks on the rise, at 0805 GMT on Monday, Spain's selective Ibex-35 stock market index was down 5.70 points, or 0.06%, to 10,217.70 points, still at its highest levels since May 2018, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.02%.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 0.29%, BBVA scored 0.35%, Caixabank advanced 0.13%, Sabadell gained 0.77%, Bankinter appreciated 0.49% and Unicaja Banco lost 0.97%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.42%, Inditex gave up 0.03%, Iberdrola traded almost flat, Cellnex fell 0.62%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.39%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos; edited by Benjamín Mejías Valencia)