Spain's Ibex-35 stock index closed lower on Friday, snapping a five-week winning streak, amid fears that interest rate hikes scheduled for next week on both sides of the Atlantic could lead to higher borrowing costs.

Data released on Friday showed that the eurozone economy is barely growing, but inflation remains high, leaving the European Central Bank with little choice but to inflict more financial hardship on households and businesses to control prices.

"The last week of April has been conditioned by certain doubts and declines on both sides of the Atlantic, with investors positioning themselves for the upcoming meetings of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) (...) in order to know the interest rate decision and intentions for the coming months," summarized Diego Morin, analyst at IG.

In this context, the selective Spanish stock market Ibex-35 closed with a fall of 73.60 points on Friday, or 0.79%, to 9,241.00 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks rose by 0.43%.

For the week as a whole, the Ibex-35 shows a decline of 1.85%, breaking the series of five positive weeks that began on March 24, while for the month as a whole (since 31/03/2023), the Ibex accumulates a rise of 0.09%.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 2.94%, BBVA fell 3.48%, Caixabank dropped 5.50%, Sabadell fell 7.14%, Bankinter dropped 3.91% and Unicaja Banco lost 9.94%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.15%, Inditex advanced 0.55%, Iberdrola dropped 0.42%, Cellnex gained 0.87%, and the oil company Repsol rose 1.29%.

(Information by Flora Gómez)