The Spanish stock index IBEX 35 opened Thursday's session in negative after two days of decline and fell from the psychological level of 11,000 points, as investors awaited inflation data from the United States and the first round of the early legislative elections in France next Sunday.

Markets were warily awaiting the US consumer deflator (Friday at 1230 GMT), which could give clues as to when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, after data in Australia and Canada showed an unexpected rise in inflation in both countries.

In parallel, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman on Wednesday reiterated her view that "inflation will continue to decline if the policy rate is maintained" and that "eventually" it will be necessary to cut rates if inflation moves steadily toward 2%.

Macroeconomic data of note for the remainder of the week include US first-quarter gross domestic product estimates (Thursday at 1230 GMT), plus inflation rates for several European countries on Friday.

Attention will also be on the first US presidential debate on Thursday, which will bring together the current president, Democrat Joe Biden, and his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, who will try to win the support of undecided voters.

Also weighing on the markets was the fall in shares of chipmaker Micron Technology, which lost 8% in post-market trading in the US after it failed to beat lofty revenue expectations.

"This leaves the market continuing to question the sustainability of overly concentrated stock market rallies around AI," Renta 4 analysts said in a note to clients.

At 07:09 GMT on Thursday, Spain's selective IBEX 35 stock market index was down 53.90 points, or 0.49%, to 10,976.60 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was down 0.03%.

In the banking sector, Santander lost 0.30%, BBVA gained 0.11%, Caixabank ceded 0.20%, Sabadell fell 0.34%, Bankinter dropped 0.45% and Unicaja Banco lost 0.55%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 0.30%, Inditex dropped 0.92%, Iberdrola dropped 0.12%, Cellnex fell 0.06%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.10%.

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