Spain's Ibex-35 stock index posted its biggest daily decline in more than a month and a half at Thursday's opening, amid an increasingly complex scenario in which high interest rates are looming for longer than expected to combat inflation, which in turn could trigger a full-blown recession in the major Western economies.

The Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman's comments the day before brought no major news, but fleshed out projections of two more rate hikes in the current monetary tightening cycle.

The market is also nervously awaiting Thursday's decision by the Bank of England, which could raise interest rates by 25 to 50 basis points in view of the persistence of British inflation.

"Inflation is forcing central banks to remain 'hawkish' (advocates of monetary tightening), increasing the risks of recession," said analysts at Renta 4.

These analysts pointed out that "the inversion of the curve (2-10 years) is approaching 100 bp highs (4.74%, 3.78%), warning of the growing risk of recession", in reference to the evolution of public debt, which the markets use as a thermometer for macroeconomic forecasts.

Renta 4 adds that in recent days additional signs of deterioration in the economic cycle have continued to arrive, such as comments from the German IFO institute indicating that the recession in Germany will be more intense than expected.

Against this backdrop, at 07:15 GMT on Thursday, Spain's selective Ibex-35 stock market index fell 145.60 points, or 1.54%, to 9,290.80 points, the biggest daily drop since May 2.

For its part, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks fell by 1.21%.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 2.47%, BBVA fell 2.39%, Caixabank dropped 2.06%, Sabadell fell 2.46%, Bankinter lost 2.03% and Unicaja Banco lost 1.81%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 1.18%, Inditex dropped 1.54%, Iberdrola dropped 0.63%, Cellnex fell 1.12%, and the oil company Repsol lost 1.56%.

(Information by Tomás Cobos; edited by Darío Fernández)