Banking suffers sharp falls on the stock market after the new tax announced by Sánchez | Economy

Bank prices have suffered sharp collapses this Tuesday after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has spoken of a new “extraordinary and temporary” tax for the sector. Shortly after the announcement, which took place in the Congress of Deputies during the opening speech of the debate on the state of the nation, the shares of the five Spanish entities that are listed on the Ibex 35 have begun to fall sharply. As a whole, the sector lost almost 6% at 13:30, less than an hour after the president’s words.

The biggest setbacks are being noted, at the moment, by CaixaBank, Banco Sabadell and Bankinter. The entity chaired by Gonzalo Gortázar has fallen by 9%, trading at around 2.70 euros per share, which had started the day at 2.95 euros. Banco Sabadell’s shares, for their part, fell by 9.17% to around 0.60 euros. Bankinter also noted a large drop, which started on Tuesday with the share above 5 euros and has seen it drop to 4.60 euros, a drop of 9.67%.

BBVA and Santander have been the ones that in the initial moments have had a more contained reaction in the Spanish selective. Although that does not free them from bulky descents. The bank chaired by Carlos Torres sees its share fall by around 6%, to around 4 euros (it opened the price at 4.27 euros). For its part, the entity headed by Ana Botín leaves almost 5% and has seen the shares drop to 2.40 euros (compared to 2.55 with which they started the day). Like the previous three, for more than three hours after closing, the five large listed banks continued to deepen losses at times.

During his initial speech in the debate on the state of the nation, Sánchez announced new taxes on the profits of large companies, to help spread the economic costs of the crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Specifically, he has referred to two new taxes, one for energy firms and another for banks. Altogether, the president has said, 3,500 million will be collected between 2022 and 2023. The one that will affect the banks is expected to capture some 1,500 million and will be “extraordinary and temporary”, according to the socialist leader, who has justified the measure because the sector “is already beginning to benefit from the rise in interest rates”.

The falls of the bank have marked the day for an Ibex 35 that started in negative, has slowly climbed to become positive around noon and has definitively turned red after the words of the President of the Government. Shortly after two in the afternoon it was down more than a point and a half from Monday’s close, with only a few companies holding onto gains. Interestingly, some of them are related to energy, although the most linked to renewable sources stand out. Of the firms that in principle could be most affected by the tax on this sector, which was already expected because the Government had commented on it on previous occasions (unlike the banking sector), Repsol is the one that is seeing the most pronounced losses (coming close to 4% drop), while Iberdrola and Endesa have registered a negative impact on their shares of less than 1%. Naturgy, for its part, maintained slight gains (0.25%) almost two hours after Sánchez’s announcement that has shaken the Stock Market.