On Thursday, the Ibex-35 recovered part of the ground lost the day before, due to the advance of stocks in the banking sector, in spite of the caution due to the situation in the Middle East.

Investors are awaiting the release of the US monthly employment report on Friday, which could provide clues about the Federal Reserve's (Fed) long-awaited interest rate cuts in 2024.

In this regard, the minutes of the Fed's latest meeting were released on Wednesday, which, according to a report by analysts at Banco Sabadell, "confirm the intention of rate cuts by 2024 but insist on steering away from premature rate cuts."

At the securities house Renta 4 they pointed out that the minutes "suggested maintaining high rates for longer (the start of the cuts would occur at the end of 2024) than a priori the market has recently begun to discount (start of the cuts in March 2024)", which helped the share prices of banking, one of the few sectors favored by high interest rates.

However, the rise in oil prices was a cause for concern, given the fear of a reduction in supply due to disruptions in a Libyan oil field and the intensification of the conflict between Israel and Gaza.

Thus, at 08:05 GMT on Thursday, the selective Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 was up 55.90 points, or 0.56%, to 10,108.20 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.35%.

The banking sector showed advances: Santander rose 0.54%, BBVA gained 0.63%, Caixabank advanced 0.28%, Sabadell gained 0.26%, Bankinter gained 0.33%, and Unicaja Banco lost 0.06%.

The selective index was also boosted by Repsol, which rose by 1.11%, helped by higher oil prices.

Among the other large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.41%, Inditex advanced 0.32%, Iberdrola gained 0.80%, and Cellnex fell 0.17%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos)