Markets, Business & Tech Briefing: PSI Edges Up, Galp Leads Energy Rebound, Hovione Opens Loures Plant

Portuguese Equities: PSI Erases an Early Dip to Edge Higher, Led by Galp

Euronext Lisbon opened the week on the back foot but clawed its way back to close marginally higher. The PSI index (Portuguese Stock Index) ended Monday at 9,070.71 points, up 0.09% (+8.45 points) on Friday's 9,062.26 close, after spending the morning as much as 0.4% in the red as energy and banking heavyweights dragged. The turnaround was led by the energy complex: Galp Energia, down more than 1.5% in the first minutes of trading, reversed to finish around 1.8% higher near €19.29, while paper-and-cement holding company Semapa added close to 2% to €20.65 and EDP Renováveis (EDP Renewables) gained about 0.7%. The offsetting weakness sat with the retailers, as Sonae slipped roughly 1.2% to €2.06 and Jerónimo Martins eased about 1% to €16.67, with paper maker Navigator also softer. Thin summer volumes continued to exaggerate modest moves, but the late recovery kept Lisbon comfortably above the 9,000 mark as the second-quarter reporting season approaches.

Government Bonds and the Euro: Bund Spread Holds at 35 Basis Points, Euro Slips

Portuguese sovereign debt drifted a touch cheaper alongside the wider European market. The yield on the 10-year Obrigações do Tesouro (Treasury bonds) rose about two basis points to 3.51%, while the German 10-year Bund climbed a similar three basis points to 3.16%. Because both legs moved almost in lockstep, the spread that matters most for Lisbon — the premium Portugal pays over Germany to borrow for a decade — held steady at roughly 35 basis points, still close to its tightest levels since before the bailout years. In currencies, the euro eased to about $1.141, down around 0.2% from Friday's $1.145 and off last week's one-month high. The pullback reflected a firmer dollar as fresh Middle East tensions and higher crude prices weighed on the single currency, only partly offset by softer United States inflation data; markets expect the European Central Bank to leave rates unchanged at its meeting this week, with the next move not priced until September.

Deal Watch: Hovione Opens a €40 Million Loures Plant

On the corporate front, pharmaceutical group Hovione — a Portuguese contract developer and manufacturer of active drug ingredients — inaugurated a new production unit in Loures, on Lisbon's northern edge, representing an investment of more than €40 million and creating some 50 jobs. The plant, opened at a ceremony attended by the Minister for the Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, houses a flexible batch-production line designed to scale manufacturing volumes up or down by project. It expands Hovione's drug-development and manufacturing capacity in Portugal at a time when global pharmaceutical customers are diversifying their supply chains, and adds to a run of industrial reinvestment around the capital.

Energy and Mobility: EDP and Bolt Launch a Flat EV Fleet-Charging Tariff

In energy and mobility, EDP Comercial — the retail arm of EDP — Energias de Portugal (Energies of Portugal) — has teamed up with the ride-hailing platform Bolt to offer electric-fleet drivers a flat charging rate of €0.45 per kilowatt-hour, inclusive of energy, charge-point use and taxes, valid through the end of 2026 at EDP-operated public charging points. The all-in price is aimed at giving professional drivers on the Bolt platform predictable running costs, stripping out the usual variability between the separate components of public-network tariffs. For EDP, it deepens a push to lock in fleet demand across its charging network as Portugal's electric-vehicle base keeps expanding.

The Week Ahead

With Euronext Lisbon reopening on Tuesday, the earnings calendar moves into focus: EDP is scheduled to report first-half results on 30 July, with the listed banks and other blue chips following in the days after, giving investors their first hard read on how deposit margins and fee income are holding up as Euribor drifts lower. Expect Galp and the wider energy complex to keep tracking crude and the Middle East headlines that unsettled the euro on Monday, while the European Central Bank meeting should set the tone for bonds; barring a fresh oil shock, a PSI hovering near 9,070 and a 35-basis-point bond spread leave Lisbon positioned for another cautious, low-volume summer session on Tuesday.