Spain's IBEX 35 stock index opened Friday with a moderate rebound that ended a string of five consecutive down sessions, but still accumulated its biggest weekly decline since mid-January as it digested economic and monetary news.

The week confirmed the move away from the start of interest rate cuts in the United States, following the publication of a higher-than-expected inflation index, while the European Central Bank (ECB) pointed in the opposite direction, suggesting that the change of cycle will begin in June.

Beyond the divergence between the two central banks, the market continues to assimilate a much less lax interest rate horizon than expected at the beginning of the year, which has led to a correction of positions in equities in recent weeks.

"Monetary policy will remain tight, as long as inflationary pressures remain, especially in the services sector and energy (geopolitical context), as well as structurally inflationary factors going forward (de-globalization/decarbonization/China demographics/wage bargaining power/taxes)," said analysts at the Renta 4 brokerage house following the ECB meeting.

"We expect 4 rate cuts by 2024, with the first in June, when more information (new data and updated ECB macro picture) will be available," they added.

According to interest rate futures on LSEG's IRPR tool, markets currently expect the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to cut borrowing costs by a total of 44 points this year, while the ECB would cut about 78 points.

In the case of the Fed, investors therefore expect just under two cuts of 25 basis points on average, compared with the six they expected at the beginning of the year.

Otherwise, the day will be short on macroeconomic data, so the focus will be on the start of the US corporate earnings season with figures from BlackRock, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and State Street Corp.

Against this backdrop, at 07:24 GMT on Friday the selective Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 was up 59.90 points, or 0.56%, to 10,709.70 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks < .FTEU3> advanced 0.91%.

For the week as a whole, the Ibex-35 shows a decline of 1.93%, its biggest loss in value since the week of January 15-19.

In the banking sector, Santander was up 0.70%, BBVA was down 0.54%, Caixabank was down 0.34%, Sabadell was down 2.01%, Bankinter was down 0.46%, and Unicaja Banco was up 1.41%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.33%, Inditex advanced 0.87%, Iberdrola rose 0.94%, Cellnex gained 1.18%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.26%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos; edited by Javi West Larrañaga)