Markets, Business & Tech Briefing: PSI Rises 0.6%, Jeronimo Martins Leads, Anacom Caps Switch Fees

Market Wrap: Lisbon Reopens Higher

Lisbon opened August's first full trading week on the front foot. The PSI index (Portuguese Stock Index) closed Monday's session up 0.61% at 9,171.70 points, adding 55.66 points to recover most of Friday's give-back and shrug off the weekend's flurry of deal headlines. It was a broad-based advance rather than a one-stock rally: the benchmark spent the day between 9,077.79 and 9,176.52 and finished within a whisker of its high, with buyers outnumbering sellers across the blue chips. After a July that ended slightly lower even as one company after another posted record half-year profits, the first Monday of August suggests the "sell the news" reflex may be fading and that investors are once again willing to put money to work in Lisbon.

Movers: Jerónimo Martins and BCP Lead a Broad Advance

Retail and banking did the heavy lifting. Jerónimo Martins was the standout among the blue chips, climbing 1.50% to €17.62 as investors kept rewarding the food-retail group that owns Pingo Doce at home and Biedronka in Poland. Millennium BCP — Banco Comercial Português (Portuguese Commercial Bank) — was close behind, up 1.41% to €1.08, extending the run that has made the lender one of the index's best performers this year. Corticeira Amorim, the world's largest cork producer, rose 1.21% to €6.70, and the paper-and-pulp maker Altri added 0.95%. Sonae, NOS, REN, EDP Renováveis and Mota-Engil all closed in the green, underlining the day's positive breadth.

On the other side of the ledger, the falls were shallow and few. The paper-and-cement holding Semapa was the day's weakest blue chip, slipping 1.29% to €19.84, while the postal and logistics operator CTT — Correios de Portugal (Portugal Post) — eased 0.97% to €6.10. The energy pair was quiet: EDP — Energias de Portugal (Portugal Energy) — closed flat at €4.47, and Galp Energia edged up 0.30% to €19.75, with Brent crude giving the oil major little to react to.

Business & Tech Focus: Anacom Targets Switching Failures, Sonnedix Lands €730M

The day's most consequential domestic development came from the regulator's desk. Anacom — Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (National Communications Authority) — put out a draft regulation that would overhaul what happens when a household switches internet or telephone provider. Under the proposal, the incoming operator would take charge of the entire transfer, and if it botched the timing the compensation could be steep: €23 per service for each day a customer is left without a working connection beyond the legal deadline, capped at €5,750 per switch request, plus a separate €3 a day for a delayed transfer and €10 for a missed technician appointment. The rules are not yet in force — they are open to public consultation until 11 September — but they put MEO, NOS, Vodafone and Nowo on notice that sloppy switching could soon carry a real price, and they hand consumers a rare piece of leverage in a market where changing supplier has long been a headache.

In the energy sector, the renewables developer Sonnedix confirmed it had closed €730 million of financing to accelerate its build-out across southern Europe, Portugal included. The package — arranged with a syndicate of banks including Santander, Intesa Sanpaolo, Société Générale, UniCredit and ING — will fund roughly 540 megawatts of new solar photovoltaic capacity together with two battery-storage projects, with Italy taking the largest single share. For Portugal, where solar has become an increasingly central part of the generation mix, it is another sign that international capital continues to flow into the country's clean-energy pipeline even as financing costs stay elevated.

Bonds, the Euro and Next Year's Rents

The macro backdrop stayed reassuringly dull. Portugal's 10-year Obrigações do Tesouro (Treasury bonds) yielded around 3.49%, down roughly six basis points on the session, keeping the spread over benchmark German Bunds close to a historically tight 33 basis points — a slim premium that continues to reflect the country's budget surpluses and shrinking debt pile. The euro barely moved, with EUR/USD holding near $1.153, little changed on the day and still comfortably inside the range it has traded all summer.

One number worth filing away for tenants and landlords: early media estimates, drawn from the inflation reading the INE — Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Statistics Portugal) — published on 31 July, point to a rent-update coefficient of around 2.5% for 2027, up from 2.24% this year. The figure is only an estimate for now — the INE will confirm the official coefficient in September, and it takes effect from January — but if it holds it would add roughly €25 a month to a €1,000 rent, a reminder that even a cooling inflation rate keeps nudging the cost of housing higher.

The Day Ahead

Tuesday should be quieter on the domestic calendar, with the earnings deluge now largely behind the market and only a scattering of second-tier names left to report. Attention shifts back to the macro data — fresh euro-zone and US activity readings are due this week and will shape the interest-rate debate that ultimately drives Lisbon's rate-sensitive banks and utilities. With breadth positive and the deal pipeline still humming in the background, the near-term risk looks tilted gently to the upside, though a firmer euro or a slip in Brent could yet cap the advance.