Markets, Business & Tech Briefing: PSI Rebounds 1.2%, Unbabel Wound Up, Bank of Portugal Tightens Credit
Thursday, 2 July 2026. Euronext Lisbon snapped a three-session losing streak in style, rallying broadly to a one-month high as retail, telecoms and paper names led an advance that lifted almost the entire index. Below, where the PSI settled, what bonds and a rebounding euro are signalling, and three business stories — the Bank of Portugal tightening the screws on new credit, the formal wind-up of once-feted AI unicorn Unbabel, and a new high-voltage power link with Spain.
Lisbon rebounds to a one-month high
The PSI closed Thursday at 9,199.84 points, up 1.20% (a gain of about 109 points) and its best level in a month, recovering the ground lost over the previous three sessions as the rally swept nearly the whole index. The benchmark still sits below its 9,516 high for the year but remains far above the 7,522 floor touched earlier in 2026, leaving it solidly higher over the past twelve months. Retailer Sonae paced the gainers, climbing 3.23%, followed by telecoms operator NOS, which rebounded 2.76% after leading Wednesday's losses, and paper-and-cement group Semapa, up 2.72%. CTT — Correios de Portugal (the postal and logistics operator) added 2.52%, cork maker Corticeira Amorim rose 2.34% and construction group Mota-Engil gained 2.25%, with pulp producer Navigator (+1.75%), lender BCP (+1.39%), utility EDP (+1.09%), grid operator REN — Redes Energéticas Nacionais (National Energy Networks) (+0.95%), Jerónimo Martins (+0.72%) and Galp (+0.54%) all higher. The lone notable decliner was EDP Renováveis, which slipped 1.06%.
Bonds steady, the euro rebounds
In fixed income, the Portuguese 10-year yield held around 3.29%, barely changed on the day (up about 1 basis point) as euro-area yields drifted marginally higher. With the German 10-year Bund near 2.97%, the spread stayed around 32 basis points — still close to its tightest in years and a continuing endorsement of Portugal's public finances, which have earned the debt agency some of the lowest funding costs in the euro-zone periphery. The single currency firmed: EUR/USD rose to about 1.1448, up roughly 0.56%, clawing back the prior day's dip as the dollar eased ahead of key US labour-market data.
Bank of Portugal tightens the screws on new credit
The Banco de Portugal (Bank of Portugal) is set to make borrowing harder from 1 August, cutting the maximum debt-service-to-income ratio — the taxa de esforço, or effort rate — on new mortgage and consumer loans from 50% to 45%. The macroprudential recommendation, which lenders must "comply or explain", also narrows the slice of new lending banks may originate outside the limits, trimming that exception margin from 15% to 10%. The regulator frames the move as a pre-emptive guard on financial stability, aimed at curbing household default risk while credit demand runs hot; it notes that roughly 76% of new mortgage and consumer loans in 2025 already carried an effort rate at or below 45%, so most borrowers are unaffected. The pinch will fall on the more stretched applicants — typically younger and lower-income buyers — for whom the tighter ceiling shaves the amount a bank can lend. For a household earning €2,000 a month, the maximum allowable debt burden falls from €1,000 to €900.
Unbabel, once a Lisbon AI unicorn, heads to liquidation
Creditors of Unbabel, the Lisbon-founded artificial-intelligence translation company once celebrated as one of the country's tech unicorns, voted on Thursday to wind the business up, sealing a rapid fall from grace. The firm — an early star of Carlos Moedas's Unicorn Factory Lisboa ecosystem — filed for insolvency in February and was formally declared insolvent by a Lisbon court on 10 March 2026, with liabilities put at some €15.5 million. Around three dozen creditors are in the queue, among them the state innovation agency IAPMEI (Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation), which has claimed about €1.3 million, the Instituto da Segurança Social (Social Security Institute), investor Iberis and suppliers including Vodafone. The collapse is politically awkward because Unbabel drew roughly €13.3 million in public money from the PRR (Recovery and Resilience Plan) under the Center for Responsible AI mobilising agenda — funding IAPMEI is now reviewing to establish whether the financed projects were completed.
Portugal and Spain switch on a new cross-border power link
Portugal and Spain on Thursday inaugurated a strategic 400-kilovolt electricity interconnection linking Viana do Castelo to Pontevedra in Galicia, deepening the integration of the two grids. Portugal's share of the investment topped €70 million — about €44 million for the transmission line and €26 million for a new substation at Ponte de Lima — and the link lifts cross-border transfer capacity by roughly 1,000 MW. Officials expect it to absorb some 281 GWh of renewable generation a year that might otherwise be curtailed, cutting carbon emissions by an estimated 113,000 tonnes annually. Stronger interconnection is central to the Iberian Peninsula's ambition of exporting its abundant wind and solar power to the rest of Europe rather than wasting it when the grid is saturated.
Outlook for Friday
Attention turns to US jobs data and the next euro-area readings heading into a holiday-shortened week on Wall Street, with a steadier euro and firm risk appetite the backdrop. On Lisbon, the question is whether Thursday's broad rebound can carry into a second session and hold the one-month high, while any fresh detail on TAP's binding bids or on the Bank of Portugal's credit rules could set the corporate tone.
