The banking sector pushed the Spanish stock market index Ibex-35 above the 9,400-point level in its third successive day of gains, while the markets remain attentive to the meeting of the economic leaders of the major central banks in Sintra, which ends this Wednesday, awaiting indications of future decisions.

At this forum of the European Central Bank in Portugal, the markets were attentive to the statements made by the president of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, and that of the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, who repeated their aggressive rhetoric of further tightening to placate the persistent inflation that is gripping the economy.

Following Tuesday's data on US housing, consumer confidence and durable goods orders, which highlighted the resilience of the US economy, Powell said the US economy needed to ease before abandoning the upward path of hikes, leaving the possibility of future hikes on the table.

"Monetary policy has not been tight enough for long enough," he said, while the CME's FedWatch tool puts an 84% chance of a Fed rate hike in July.

Lagarde, for her part, confirmed market expectations that a rate hike in July was "likely" and that the eurozone could enter recession during the year, although this was not the ECB's baseline expectation.

"We are not seeing enough tangible evidence that underlying inflation, in particular domestic prices, is stabilizing and coming down," she added.

Against this backdrop, Spain's selective Ibex-35 stock market closed up 88.30 points on Wednesday, up 0.94%, to 9,481.30 points, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks was up 0.69%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 3.58%, BBVA gained 1.03%, Caixabank gave up 0.30%, Sabadell gained 0.49%, Bankinter gained 0.11% and Unicaja Banco rose 0.97%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.27%, Inditex advanced 0.09%, Iberdrola gained 0.68%, Cellnex gained 1.10%, and the oil company Repsol rose 0.61%.

(Information by José Muñoz; edited by Flora Gómez)