The main Spanish stock market index closed Monday in positive territory, recovering part of the losses of the previous session, in a context of uncertainty in the markets regarding the direction to be taken by central banks after the publication of the US inflation data on Tuesday.

The monthly US CPI figure is expected to register an increase, with a rebound in gasoline prices likely to have pushed up the headline reading by 0.5%, following a 0.1% advance in December.

"For the Fed, it doesn't look like rate hikes are over. (Fed Chairman Jerome) Powell hinted at a higher rate spike last week if the labor market remains hot," said Erik Bregar, director of currency and precious metals risk management at Silver Gold Bull.

Despite central bankers' insistence on not letting their guard down on inflation, a string of economic data greeted with optimism by markets has put equities on an uptrend since the start of the year.

In this regard, on Monday the European Commission raised its eurozone growth forecast for 2023 and said inflation will be lower than expected by the end of 2022.

Spain's selective Ibex-35 stock market closed up 92.90 points on Monday, up 1.02%, to 9,210.30 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks rose 0.94%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.93%, BBVA gained 1.35%, Caixabank advanced 1.39%, Sabadell gained 1.76%, Bankinter gained 1.47% and Unicaja Banco rose 2.47%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica fell 0.59%, Inditex advanced 1.55%, Iberdrola gained 0.80%, Cellnex gained 1.99%, and the oil company Repsol lost 0.33%.

Mapfre stood out at the top with a rise of 4.44%, continuing the good reception of its results published on February 9.

(Information by Benjamín Mejías Valencia; additional information by Gertrude Chávez-Dreyfuss; edited by Darío Fernández)