Continues. Yesterday, the first day after Donald Trump's Liberation Day and his tariff announcement, triggered a crisis in global stock markets. European markets experienced a 3.5% drop, which in the United States reached 3.9%. This Friday, the stock market chaos continues.
In Europe, the main European stock exchanges opened with declines: the Milan Stock Exchange, the most affected, started the day with a 1.66% drop; 0.87% for Paris, 0.68% for London, and 0.63% for Frankfurt.
In another critical day, banking is the most affected sector in Europe, with leading entities like Deutsche Bank (Germany) or Unicredit (Italy) already in the red at the start of the day. It is not surprising that at the opening of the Ibex 35, CaixaBank led the declines with -3.59%. Before mid-session, other Spanish selective companies like BBVA, Sabadell, Unicaja, Bankinter, and Santander also joined the declines.
The Spanish selective index started this Friday's session with a 0.83% drop, quickly escalating to 1.25%, reaching 13,026.6 points. Before mid-session, it is already approaching a 3% decline, indicating another day of losses. The biggest gains at the Ibex opening were recorded by Iberdrola (+0.8%) and Redeia (+0.73%), leading in green during yesterday's session along with Cellnex and Acciona Energía.
There were also declines in the commodities market: at the opening of the European stock market, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil was at $68.92, a 1.74% decrease, while Texas crude oil fell by 1.85% to $65.71. In the currency market, the euro's exchange rate rose to $1.1056, while in the bond market, the yield on the 10-year bond rose to 3.248%.
"We insist that tariffs harm global trade, generate inflation, and deteriorate investor confidence and sentiment," explained Bankinter. "This explains the stock market corrections and the demand for safe-haven assets like gold, which is nearing historic highs ($3,113). In this environment, it is difficult for the market to recover unless there is an improvement in trade-related news, which seems unlikely."
Difficult day for Wall Street
In Asia, the session ended critically, deepening the cuts from yesterday. The Hang Seng, a key index in the Chinese market, closed with a 1.52% drop. Meanwhile, Tokyo's main index, the Nikkei, closed with a 2.75% drop. The Topix, which includes Japan's largest capitalization firms, fell more sharply by 3.37%.
One sector that was particularly affected, following yesterday's trend, was the automotive sector. In Japan, Toyota and Honda fell by around 4.41% and 5.45%, respectively, while Nissan dropped by 5.51%.