The measures adopted by governments to contain the health crisis resulting from the fast spread of covid-19 had a very severe effect on economic activity, causing an unprecedented fall in GDP in the first half of the year. The rapid adoption of monetary policy measures by central banks, together with the fiscal stimulus support packages that governments put in place, succeeded to counter the economic slowdown and reduce financial tensions.

The processes of relaxation of confinement measures, enabled the recovery of confidence and economic activity in the third quarter, which, was slower than expected at the end of the quarter due to new outbreaks and the consequent fear of new confinement measures, dragging the stock markets down.

During the year, the main indices performed better than the banking sector, the latter being influenced by the recommendation at the start of the pandemic by central banks, such as the ECB, the Bank of England and the Fed, to limit dividend distributions and share buybacks. In December, they relaxed the restrictions, but while the Fed allowed share buybacks to resume, the Bank of England limited its dividend payments to 25% of pay-out, and the ECB set limits of 15% of payout until September 2021.

As a result, in Spain, the Ibex 35 was down 15.5% and, in Europe, the DJ Stoxx 50 was down 8.7% in the year. DJ Stoxx Banks fell 24.5% and MSCI World Banks was down 14.2%. Santander's share price fell 29.0%, to end the year at EUR 2.538.

However, numerous vaccination announcements since November increased optimism, which led to a strong rotation of portfolios towards more cyclical sectors, notably the banking sector, and a strong increase in share prices. The main European banking index, the DJ Stoxx Banks, rose 30.9% in the quarter, compared to 20.2% for the Ibex 35 and 28.8% for the MSCI World Banks. Santander's share price stood out during this period with a rise of 65.6%.

As at 31 December 2020, Santander was the second largest bank in the Eurozone by market capitalization and the 32^nd in the world among financial entities (EUR 44,011 million).

The share’s weighting in the DJ Stoxx Banks index was 7.6% and 14.0% in the DJ Euro Stoxx Banks. In the domestic market, its weight in the Ibex 35 as at end-December was 10.4%.

A total of 19,080 million shares were traded in the year for an effective value of EUR 45,034 million and a liquidity ratio of 115%.

The daily trading volume was 74 million shares with an effective value of EUR 175 million.