Jan 25 (Reuters) - The Spanish stock index Ibex-35 showed a downward trend on Thursday after the previous day's rally, in a market reluctant to take new positions until the comments of the president of the European Central Bank (ECB).

No changes are expected in the monetary policy of the entity headed by Christine Lagarde after Thursday's meeting, so all the attention will be on the comments made by its president about the future path of interest rates.

"We expect Lagarde to confirm the idea that additional data (wages, margins, evolution of the situation in the Red Sea and its impact on supply chains) will still be needed before deciding to start lowering intervention rates, especially in a context where the latest headline inflation data have picked up in December in the face of a more complicated comparative base and the withdrawal of subsidies (gas, electricity, food)," said securities house Renta 4.

"We recall that our expectations for cuts in 2024 are more cautious than those of the market, shuffling 4 downgrades (100 basis points, bp) versus the 5-6 discounted by the market (140 bp)."

The interest rate decision will be known at 1315 GMT and Lagarde's press conference will start at 1345 GMT.

In recent weeks, the Ibex-35 has moved sideways, unable to break out of the 9,800 and 10,000 points, as the market assimilated that the cost of borrowing will not come down as soon as had been thought in the United States and the eurozone.

Before the ECB meeting, the IFO business confidence index will be released in Germany (0900 GMT), which could show a slight rebound in January compared to December.

Elsewhere, in Spain, Bankinter kicked off the quarterly reports in the banking sector, with figures that were poorly received and led the stock to lose more than 5% at the opening.

The bank, the fifth largest in Spain by market capitalization, increased its profit by 23% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, but the figure was below analysts' expectations.

Fears about banking results spread to the rest of the banking sector: Santander lost 1.37%, BBVA fell 1.19%, Caixabank dropped 3.07%, Sabadell fell 3.03% and Unicaja Banco lost 1.87%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 0.50%, Inditex dropped 0.10%, Iberdrola dropped 0.40%, Cellnex fell 0.17%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.15%.

Overall, at 0805 GMT on Thursday, the selective Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 fell 71.20 points, or 0.72%, to 9,902.80 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks fell 0.14%.

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