25 May - Spain's main stock index Ibex-35 extended losses for a third consecutive session on Thursday, with concerns over the lack of agreement on the US debt ceiling staining global markets in the red, despite signs of strength in the world's top economy.

Government and opposition continue to disagree on the extension of the US debt ceiling, raising fears that the country could enter a default on June 1 with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global economy.

This was compounded by further reasons for despondency on the other side of the Atlantic, after Europe's leading economy, Germany, slipped into recession in the first quarter.

"Unfortunately, markets now face a plethora of risks," said Ben Jones of Invesco.

Against this backdrop, the Spanish index of leading stocks failed to lift its head after the previous session's sharp 1.12% drop, heading for a weekly decline of 1.46% after two weeks of gains.

Against this backdrop of uncertainty, Thursday's data from the US did little to counteract the declines, where the increase in jobless claims rose moderately and first quarter GDP growth was revised upwards, in a sign of economic resilience.

As a result, Spain's selective Ibex-35 closed down 47.40 points on Thursday, down 0.43%, to 9,116.10 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks lost 0.21%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.43%, BBVA gained 1.20%, Caixabank advanced 0.83%, Sabadell gained 1.49%, Bankinter dropped 0.68% and Unicaja Banco rose 0.32%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 1.68%, Inditex advanced 0.10%, Iberdrola dropped 1.85%, Cellnex fell 1.88% and the oil company Repsol lost 2.80%.

(Information by José Muñoz; additional information by Chris Prentice and Marc Jones; edited by Darío Fernández).