The Spanish stock index IBEX 35 opened with a slight advance on Wednesday, continuing the advance of the previous two sessions, on a day marked by the publication of numerous quarterly reports from Spanish companies.

Santander stood out, pushing the selective index up by 1.55%, after announcing an improvement in its forecasts for the year.

Iberdrola also rose by 0.5%, after increasing its profit by 64% in the first half of the year and once again raising its forecast for net profit in 2024.

Less positive was the reaction to Repsol's results, which fell by 0.5% after increasing adjusted profit in the second quarter by 3.9% year-on-year.

In any case, the prevailing note was one of caution, as investors are awaiting data that could influence the US Federal Reserve's (Fed) interest rate decisions. On Thursday, US GDP will be released and on Friday the consumer deflator or PCE --the Fed's favorite inflation measure-- will be released.

Overall, at 0705 GMT on Wednesday, the selective Spanish stock market IBEX 35 fell 8.10 points, or 0.07%, to 11,204.60 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks fell 0.76%.

In the banking sector, BBVA fell 0.10%, Caixabank advanced 0.40%, Sabadell gained 0.25%, Bankinter gained 0.24%, and Unicaja Banco lost 0.07%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 0.56%, Inditex dropped 0.63%, and Cellnex fell 1.42%.

The most severely punished IBEX stock was the real estate company Merlin, which fell more than 2% after announcing a share placement.

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