Markets, Business & Tech Briefing: Lisbon Closed for Labour Day, EDP Goes Ex-Dividend Monday, OT 10Y Drifts to 3.46%
The latest Portugal news, analysis, and what it means for expats and residents.
📋 In This Edition
- Lisbon Market Closed for 1.º de Maio — PSI Resumes Monday at 9,344.96 After Thursday's 1.47% Rally on the BPCE-Novo Banco Closing
- Portuguese 10-Year OT Drifts Up to 3.46% on Light Holiday Trading — Spread to the German Bund Holds in the Low-40s
- EUR/USD at 1.175 Into the Long Weekend as Holiday-Thin Flows Mute the Iran-War Premium
- EDP Goes Ex-Dividend on Monday 4 May — €0.20 Final on FY 2025, Payment on 8 May, First Major PSI Dividend Out of Trading This Season
- EU-Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement Switches On Today — Day-One Tariff Cuts on Portuguese Wine, Olive Oil, Port and Metal-Mechanics
- Outlook: Monday Reopen Brings the EDP Technical Adjustment, the First Full Trading Day Under BPCE-Owned Novo Banco, and the Pump-Price Hike
Lisbon Market Closed for 1.º de Maio — PSI Resumes Monday at 9,344.96 After Thursday's 1.47% Rally on the BPCE-Novo Banco Closing
Euronext Lisbon's regulated cash market is shut on Friday for the Labour Day national holiday; equity, ETF and warrant trading on the Portuguese segment resume at the open on Monday, 4 May 2026. The PSI ended Thursday's session at 9,344.96 points, a gain of 1.47% on the day and the strongest level since June 2008, propelled by the formal closing of BPCE's €6.7 billion takeover of Novo Banco and the underlying re-rating of Portuguese bank exposure. Across the four trading sessions of the week the index added roughly 1.5%, outperforming the EuroStoxx 50 in a session-light calendar around Easter and the Iran-war volatility window. Reuters' Lisbon volume tape — provided by Euronext to Reuters Eikon — recorded €148 million in PSI-component cash equity turnover on Thursday, well above the €110 million 30-day rolling average. Settlement at Euronext Securities Porto remains open today on the T2S calendar for free-of-payment instructions only; payment-versus-payment settlement resumes Monday.
Portuguese 10-Year OT Drifts Up to 3.46% on Light Holiday Trading — Spread to the German Bund Holds in the Low-40s
Portugal's benchmark 10-year Obrigações do Tesouro yield printed 3.46% on Friday in cross-market trading, up two basis points from Thursday's close at 3.44%, on a session thinned by the Lisbon and Frankfurt holiday calendars. The German 10-year Bund sits broadly unchanged in the same window, leaving the Bund-OT spread in the low-40 basis-point range it has held through the Iran-war volatility — comfortably below the 60bps level last seen in early 2024 and consistent with the IGCP's weekly liquidity update on Wednesday flagging strong primary-market reception for May's syndicated tap. Today's drift reflects the broader European duration sell-off after Wednesday's stronger-than-expected Eurozone April HICP flash and a gradual repricing of the ECB's June meeting toward an on-hold outcome rather than the cut implied by money markets a month ago. Italy's BTP-Bund spread sits a touch tighter at 92bps, France's OAT-Bund at 67bps; Portugal continues to trade as a credit-quality outperformer in the periphery.
EUR/USD at 1.175 Into the Long Weekend as Holiday-Thin Flows Mute the Iran-War Premium
The euro traded around $1.175 against the US dollar through the European session on Friday, broadly flat versus Thursday's New York close and inside this week's 1.172-1.180 range. The pair has tracked the year-to-date average of 1.17 closely through the Iran-war risk-off episode, supported on the downside by ECB on-hold pricing and capped on the upside by the dollar's safe-haven bid every time Brent retests the $108-110 corridor. Brent November 2026 futures sit at $108.4 per barrel into the close, up 0.6% on the day. The big macro datapoint into next week is US non-farm payrolls on Friday 8 May; for the euro side, the European Commission's Spring Economic Forecast on Tuesday 5 May will set the policy backdrop for the June ECB meeting and the Eurogroup's discussion of Portugal's revised Programa de Estabilidade two weeks later.
EDP Goes Ex-Dividend on Monday 4 May — €0.20 Final on FY 2025, Payment on 8 May, First Major PSI Dividend Out of Trading This Season
Energias de Portugal trades ex-dividend on Monday, 4 May 2026 for the €0.20 per share final dividend on the 2025 financial year, approved at the Annual General Meeting on 14 April. Record date is 5 May, payment date 8 May; on a roughly 4.0 billion share base the cash distribution out of EDP's books on Friday 8 May is around €800 million, the bulk of which flows to anchor shareholder China Three Gorges (21.5%), Capital Group, Oppidum Capital and the Portuguese pension and retail base. The €0.20 figure matches the prior year's level — EDP guided in its 2026-2028 strategic plan to a stable dividend floor with the upside reinvested in renewables capex. EDP Renováveis, the listed renewables subsidiary, holds its own AGM dividend record date later in the month and is not affected by Monday's adjustment. Galp Energia follows on 27 May with a $0.39-equivalent gross dividend going ex; BCP, NOS, Sonae and CTT publish AGM-approved schedules through May and June.
EU-Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement Switches On Today — Day-One Tariff Cuts on Portuguese Wine, Olive Oil, Port and Metal-Mechanics
The EU-Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement entered provisional application on Friday, 1 May 2026 following the European Council's signature in January and last month's European Parliament consent vote. Portuguese exports to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay benefit from immediate zero-tariff treatment on most-favoured-nation lines covering wine, olive oil, port wine, beer, processed foods and a wide range of metal-mechanics products that previously faced Mercosur tariffs of up to 35% on wine and 10% on olive oil; broader manufacturing categories see phased cuts to zero over five to ten years. The market read for Lisbon-listed exporters is concentrated in Sonae (food retail and processed-food private label through Modelo Continente), Jerónimo Martins (Brazilian retail through the Recheio cash-and-carry, although domestic Brazilian sourcing dominates), and the metal-mechanics SME cluster around Mota-Engil's industrial supply chain. The Confederação Empresarial de Portugal and AICEP have framed the deal as a structural opening of a 270-million-consumer market for Portuguese SMEs; agricultural producer associations in beef, dairy and rice continue to oppose the matching reciprocal opening on the Portuguese side.
Outlook: Monday Reopen Brings the EDP Technical Adjustment, the First Full Trading Day Under BPCE-Owned Novo Banco, and the Pump-Price Hike
Lisbon's reopening on Monday, 4 May 2026 bundles three immediate market inputs: the mechanical opening cut on EDP for the €0.20 ex-dividend, the first full session with Novo Banco trading under direct BPCE ownership after Thursday's deal close (Novo Banco itself is unlisted but the read-through to BCP and Caixa Económica Montepio is on the bank-sector desks), and the start of the monthly fuel-price cycle with a forecast 9.5-cent rise on diesel and 6-cent rise on petrol — a positive read-across for Galp's downstream margins but a negative for cyclical retail and consumer names. The European data calendar opens with the Commission's Spring Forecast on Tuesday 5 May and closes the week with US non-farm payrolls on Friday 8 May; the IGCP holds no auction on the May 7 calendar slot, leaving the next syndicated tap window open into mid-May.