Markets, Business & Tech Briefing: PSI Rallies 1.12% to 9,266 on Iran-US Peace MOU, BCP Books Record €305.8M Q1, Jerónimo Martins Sales Hit €8.1B (+18.6%), Galp Sinks 2.82% as Brent Tumbles 6%

PSI Closes at 9,266.81, Up 1.12%, on Iran-US Peace MOU and a Heavy Q1 Earnings Wave — Lisbon Underperforms Continental Peers as Galp's Energy Weight Absorbs the Brent Reversal

Euronext Lisbon's regulated cash market opened on Wednesday, 6 May 2026 with Tuesday's 9,164.62 close on the live mark and the overnight Iran-peace headlines pricing through the European cash open. The leaked 14-point memorandum of understanding that the White House circulated on Tuesday night — drafted as a one-page framework for ending the Iran war and structuring the next round of nuclear-program negotiations — landed on the regional tape with Brent crude tumbling roughly 6% through the European session to about $103.23 a barrel from Tuesday's $113.54 close, with the front-month contract at one point trading below $101 and the curve compressing into a cleaner backwardation. Tehran's foreign-ministry spokesperson confirmed before midday Lisbon time that the proposal was being 'evaluated' with the United States expecting an Iranian response within roughly 48 hours; Trump's pause on Project Freedom, the US Navy escort programme that had been pushing convoys through the Strait of Hormuz under live small-craft fire-exchange since Monday, signalled the same de-escalation read. The PSI ran a clean morning bid that took the index through the 9,250 handle by midday and a final close at 9,266.81 points — a 102.19-point gain of 1.12% on cash equity turnover that we estimate ran above the 30-day rolling average of €110 million on the heavy earnings-day flow. Corticeira Amorim led the tape at +4.90% to €7.06 on a clean follow-through from Tuesday's bid as the cork-stoppers and flooring book caught the through-cycle German-auto-supplier read; Mota-Engil ran +4.75% to €4.894 on the morning launch of its own €50 million sustainability-linked retail bond at 4.60% gross, with the subscription window open 6 to 19 May and a swap lane built into the prospectus for the existing 4.15% 2021/2026 holders maturing in two months. Teixeira Duarte +4.74%, CTT +3.62% to €6.30 ahead of the after-market Q1 print, BCP +3.49% to €0.9194 on the headline 25%-up record Q1 beat, and Jerónimo Martins +2.47% to €20.32 on the 18.6% sales growth filled out the gainer ranks. Galp was the only PSI loser at -2.82% to €19.30, with the energy supermajor's roughly 5% index weight absorbing the brunt of the geopolitical-risk-off trade through the European energy complex. The PSI's 1.12% session gain compares to CAC40 +2.94% and Ibex35 +2.41% closes — Lisbon underperformed by 130 to 180 basis points, the cleanest read of how concentrated the Iran-peace trade was in the energy sector and how heavily Galp's weight sits in the headline tape.

BCP Posts Record €305.8 Million Q1 Net Profit, Up 25% Year-on-Year — Portugal Up 21.2%, International Up 65%, Bank Millennium the Dominant Engine With a 67.8% Print, Cost of Risk Compresses to 35bps

Banco Comercial Português published its standalone Q1 2026 results before the European open on Wednesday with a net profit of €305.8 million, up 25% year-on-year and a record for the bank's first quarter — comfortably above the €293 million consensus published by Jefferies last week and re-baselining the BCP Q1 trajectory above the credit-impairment-reversal-driven Q1 2025 print. The geographic split reads cleanly with international operations carrying the structural-growth signal: Portugal contributed €265.4 million in net profit, up 21.2% on the standalone book that has now fully priced through the BdP-tightened mortgage supervisory regime and the post-Euribor-peak NIM normalisation; international operations contributed €77.71 million, up 65.0% from the €47.11 million Q1 2025 print, with Bank Millennium Polonia the dominant engine at €71.21 million, up 67.8%. The Polish read is the supportive line through the BCP equity-story repricing this spring — Bank Millennium's Q1 print on 28 April had already telegraphed the magnitude of the Polish recovery and Wednesday's group consolidation locks the 65%-up international result into the Q2 outlook. Group ROE ran at 15.9%, comfortably above the bank's medium-term 14% target; cost of risk compressed to 35 basis points from 38 basis points in Q1 2025, with non-performing exposures down €238 million year-on-year, signalling another quarter of clean asset-quality migration into the consumer-credit and SME books. Credit to customers grew 7.2% year-on-year to €63.4 billion on the back of a strong mortgage origination cycle into March's €4.057 billion household-credit print (the highest single-month total in the BdP series since January 2003); customer resources grew 7.9% to €112.8 billion, with the active client base up 5% to 7.4 million and mobile clients up 8% at 75% of the total base — the digital-channel migration is now structurally embedded in the cost-to-income trajectory. The BCP equity move of +3.49% on the day reads as the cleanest sell-the-Tuesday-news, buy-the-Wednesday-print reversal of the recent BPCE-deal-driven repricing range.

Jerónimo Martins Q1 2026 Sales Top €8.1 Billion, Up 18.6% — Pingo Doce Up 8.3%, Biedronka Up 9.3% in Local Currency, EBITDA Grows 13.9% to €508 Million as the Cooling-Consumer Overhang Lifts

Jerónimo Martins's Q1 2026 print published before the open with group sales rising 18.6% to over €8.1 billion on a foreign-exchange-favourable Polish złoty translation and a clean Easter calendar effect that captured both the early-April and late-March demand pulse. Group EBITDA rose 13.9% to €508 million with the EBITDA margin consolidating at 6.3%, broadly stable with the prior-year base and reading materially better than the cooling-margin commentary that had been weighing on the Lisbon trade since the late-2025 like-for-like cool-down. Pingo Doce, the Iberian flagship banner, posted sales of €1.2 billion, up 8.3% year-on-year — the strongest single-quarter print in over a year and a clear signal that the Portuguese consumer-staples category has held up through the Hormuz-driven fuel-price spike and the broader cost-of-living tape. Biedronka, the Polish discounter that has been the structural growth engine for the JM equity story, posted sales of €5.8 billion, up 9.3% in local currency and +18.8% in euro terms, with 28 store openings and 62 refurbishments closed in the quarter; the in-store productivity print supports the cooling-Polish-consumer-trade-down narrative without breaking the like-for-like growth path. Hebe, the Polish drugstore-and-cosmetics specialty banner, posted sales of €130 million, up 28% in local currency and +39.2% over the Q1 2023 base — the second-derivative growth read on the JM portfolio's specialty-retail leg. The shareholder takeaway is the through-cycle resilience of the Pingo Doce-Biedronka core into the European-Commission Spring Forecast's revised Portugal growth path and the broader Polish wage-and-disinflation cycle; the €20.32 close on a +2.47% day re-tested the €20 level support that has held through the Q1-print run-up.

Galp Sinks 2.82% on Brent's 6% Reversal, EUR/USD Ticks Higher to 1.1734, EC Spring Forecast Lands on the Same Tape — Outlook: Navigator, REN and EDP Standalone on Thursday-Friday Into US Non-Farm Payrolls

Galp Energia was the single PSI loser on Wednesday at -2.82% to €19.30 as the Iran-peace MOU pulled Brent crude back roughly 6% to $103.23 a barrel from Tuesday's $113.54 close, with intraday prints below $101 and the curve compressing as the Hormuz-shipping risk premium evaporated through the European session. The downstream-margin tailwind that had been building through the post-Hormuz-spike fuel cycle now reverses; Portaria 204-B/2026's 1.5 cêntimos ISP-discount adjustment locked in this week's €1.993/L gasolina and €2.055/L gasóleo simples pump prices but Galp's downstream realisation is now sized to the lower curve into Q2. The Pre-Sal Petróleo upstream working-interest stack — Tuesday's ANP-approved Berbigão (6.45%) and Sururu (9.497%) unitization agreements at the BM-S-11A pre-salt cluster — keeps the production allocation locked into Q1 even with the lower realised-price line. EUR/USD ticked +0.35% higher to 1.1734 on a dollar-soft Iran-peace risk-on trade that ran the same direction as European equities, with the post-1.17 figure now extending into a fresh seven-week high range; the 52-week range on the pair sits at 1.1065 to 1.2079 and the live test of the post-2022 dollar-weakness range stays open into Friday's US non-farm payrolls. The European Commission Spring Forecast published Wednesday morning with the updated Portugal-specific growth-and-deficit path joining the live cross-market tape; the prior autumn-2025 read sat at 2.2% growth and a 0.3% deficit for 2026 with the public-debt-to-GDP trajectory at 89.2%, and the consensus path now sits in line with the IMF's 1.9% and CFP's running reads. Outlook: Thursday 7 May closes the Lisbon Q1 wave with The Navigator Company and REN reporting before market and EDP standalone on Thursday-Friday; CTT's analyst teleconference holds at 09:00 GMT+1 Thursday morning with the after-market Q1 numbers as the dominant Lisbon-specific tape into Friday's US non-farm payrolls and the next ECB meeting cycle. The Iran response window on the US peace draft is the single biggest cross-market overhang into the next 48 hours, with Brent's $100 level now the live test of the geopolitical risk-premium reset.