The Spanish stock index Ibex-35 opened Friday with a moderate decline, weighed down by the negative reaction to the quarterly results of Unicaja and Mapfre, while market speculation continues about the next steps of the major central banks.

After Thursday's data showed the slowdown in the US economy, investors are awaiting next week's meetings of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Federal Reserve to know their decisions on the fight against inflation.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the focus will be on Eurozone GDP, German CPI and a U.S. price report.

On the microeconomic front, the results of two Spanish financial sector groups pushed the Ibex-35 into negative territory. Unicaja Banco lost 7.44%, after lower-than-expected profit figures, and the reaction to the quarterly report of the insurance company Mapfre, which lost 2.56% on the stock market, was not positive either.

Overall, at 0717 GMT on Friday, the selective Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 fell 36.70 points, or 0.39%, to 9,277.90 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks advanced 0.10%.

For the week as a whole, the Ibex-35 shows a decline of 1.46%, which would break a streak of five consecutive weeks of gains. Despite this, it aims to close April with a month-on-month increase of 0.64%.

In the rest of the banking sector, Santander lost 0.70%, BBVA gained 0.52%, Caixabank dropped 0.70%, Sabadell fell 1.03% and Bankinter lost 0.86%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.29%, Inditex dropped 0.06%, Iberdrola gained 0.25%, Cellnex gained 0.98%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.68%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos; edited by Benjamín Mejías Valencia)