European stock indices affected by the withdrawal of monetary stimuli

We start a new week with a certain positive sign for the stock markets, where the activity will moderate from Asia due to the beginning of the Chinese New Year due to the closure of most markets in the region. In the rest of the stock markets, we will have a week full of references after some very volatile sessions. In addition, oil continues to rise and yesterday registered its highest rise in the last thirty years, motivated by geopolitical tensions and pending tomorrow's meeting of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).

After the good closing of the US stock markets last Friday, the European session on Monday started with a positive tone, returning to neutral ground at midday, although ending significantly higher after a solid opening in the United States. Thus, to end the month of January, the Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.91% to 4,174 integers, accumulating an annual fall of 2.88%. Despite the good start to the week, the main European indices accumulated large losses in January due to the withdrawal of monetary stimuli. In national territory, on the other hand, the Ibex 35 behaved more unfavorably and closed practically flat, 0.03% up to 8,612 points, with a better monthly and annual return of -1.16%.

At a sectoral level, the highlight was the strong recovery of more than 3% in the punished technology sector, which, however, ended January as the worst sector in the European stock market, correcting 13%. Other clearly positive sectors yesterday were financial services, luxury and industrials. On the other hand, a worse relative behavior was observed in the session in raw materials, as well as in energy (best sector in January with a rise of close to 10%) and personal consumption.

As far as securities are concerned, in the European stock market the correction of Eni and Total in the energy sector stood out, along with Santander, Sanofi or Basf. On the positive side, the best performers were tech companies ASML, Prosus or Infineon, along with Adyen and Adidas. Within the selective Spanish sector level we saw a greater drop in Santander in banks along with Bankinter or Caixabank, as well as Enagás and Inditex. Instead, the most favorable performance was scored by Rovi, Solaria and Siemens Gamesa, along with Arcelor and Pharmamar.

While in the USA, Wall Street closed with the second great impulse of the technology sector, although its accumulated fall in January is 9%, being the most damaged sector as in Europe. The US stock markets opened the first session of the week slightly in neutral territory, but boosted by the technology sector, they ended the day clearly positive. The S&P 500 left us with a rise of 1.89%, up to 4,515 points and an annual return of -5.26%, which was also reflected in the Dow Jones (+1.17%) and especially in the momentum of the technological Nasdaq (+3.41%), which has enjoyed its biggest rise in two days since November 2020, although it ends January correcting 9%.