24 May - Spain's main stock index Ibex-35 opened lower on Wednesday as it shared the concerns of other financial markets over negotiations to reach an agreement to raise the US debt ceiling, which is dampening investors' appetite for risk.

Discussions between the White House and congressional Republicans on the US debt ceiling show no signs of progress and continue to capture the attention of the markets, amid warnings that failure to reach an agreement could result in default and contribute to pushing the country into recession.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the Administration could run out of enough money to pay as of June 1.

Meanwhile, hawkish rhetoric from the Fed's monetary leadership continues to push market bets that interest rates will stay higher for longer, with the FedWatch tool putting the likelihood of another quarter-percentage point hike in June at 27%.

On the rate front, the minutes of the Fed's May meeting will be released later in the day, which could provide further macroeconomic clues.

"The minutes could serve to confirm that the market is excessively 'dovish' (with monetary easing forecasts) by discounting cuts for this year (-50 bps by the end of 2023 and another -25 bps in early 2024), bearing in mind that inflation remains far from the 2% target," wrote analysts at Renta4.

In the context of rates, the Central Bank of New Zealand surprised markets by announcing that it had ended its macroeconomic tightening cycle, after raising its interest rate to 5.5% and indicating that it will hold it until mid-2024.

During the day, the German IFO data will also be released, and on Thursday the US inflation data will be revised.

Thus, at 07:01 GMT on Wednesday, the selective Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 fell 89.80 points, or 0.92%, to 9,181.50 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks fell 0.69%.

At the top of the board was the energy company Grenergy Renovables SA, with a rise of 1.13% after announcing a 15% increase in its first-quarter profits.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 1.49%, BBVA fell 1.76%, Caixabank gave up 0.77%, Sabadell fell 0.97%, Bankinter dropped 0.54% and Unicaja Banco lost 1.10%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 0.03%, Inditex dropped 1.00%, Iberdrola dropped 0.73%, Cellnex fell 0.65%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.04%.

(Information by José Muñoz, edited by Tomás Cobos).