The Spanish stock index IBEX 35 opened with little change on Wednesday and tried to consolidate the psychological level of 11,000 points recovered the day before, in markets that continue to speculate about the long-awaited interest rate cuts.

The publication of the PMI business survey in the United States on Tuesday revived hopes of an easing in financing conditions, as it showed that business activity cooled in April to a four-month low due to weak demand.

Also, the inflation indicator included in the survey showed a slight decline, a trend that could be welcomed by the Federal Reserve when making upcoming monetary policy decisions.

On this side of the Atlantic, European Central Bank (ECB) officials are likely to carefully analyze another survey, the one conducted by the IFO institute in Germany, which according to Reuters forecasts could show a rebound from 87.8 to 88.8 in the case of the business confidence index.

"This improvement in the German IFO will add to the good tone yesterday of the European PMIs, with the composite data at 11-month highs driven by the improvement in services and despite the weakness in manufacturing, especially in countries such as Germany and France," analysts at the Renta 4 securities house said in a daily report.

"The current PMI levels suggest that the European economy is moving away from stagnation and could grow by around +0.3% in 2Q24e, although we will also have to take into account the possible upward pressure on inflation from the good momentum in services, the sector from which the main price tensions are coming," they added.

Otherwise, the focus remains on the trickle of corporate results for the first quarter, with the release of Iberdrola's figures in Spain.

The electricity company gained 0.39% on the stock market after slightly raising its net profit forecast for 2024 following a solid performance in this area in the first quarter, although sales fell by 18%.

Overall, the selective Spanish stock market IBEX 35 was up 5.70 points, 0.05%, to 11,081.10 points, at 0718 GMT on Wednesday, after rising almost 350 points in the two previous sessions.

Meanwhile, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks advanced 0.05%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.46%, BBVA gained 0.05%, Caixabank gave up 0.06%, Sabadell fell 0.03%, Bankinter gained 0.58% and Unicaja Banco lost 0.35%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.24%, Inditex dropped 0.61%, Cellnex fell 0.69%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.43%.

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