What Jumps Out: An Eclectic Week

It has, thus far, been a week of general weakness in the equity market and a Peso that has been led around by the nose, by global events.

The hot topic this week has been fuel prices, and they are set to rise from October, but gently does it due to inflation concerns. The Finance Ministry suggests the bigger increases will come from 2023 once inflation starts to decrease; all this to remove billions of dollars in fuel subsidies over the coming years.

The latest Central Bank survey (of 40 analysts) supports that with 2022 CPI estimate rising to 11.22% (from 10.02%) and 2023 to 6.47% (5.70%). The Peso is expected to stay above $4000 through September 2024.

Electricity prices are another crusade of the new government – CREG (Energy & Gas Regulatory Commission), the agency that regulates prices, find themselves under threat, Medellin-based electrical utility EPM was quick to state that they are predisposed to freeze prices voluntarily.

Rupert’s opinions & analysis as an independent expert contributor are his own and not necessarily those of Finance Colombia or the BVC.

Staying with energy, Ecopetrol announced that the Reficar refinery, after 30 months of maintenance will see capacity rise from 150k to 200k bpd. This will help reduce costly fuel imports.

As expected, Congress passed the 2023 budget of COP405.6 trillion ($92 billion USD), the coming weeks will see the debate over the how it is distributed.

After overtures from President Petro, Venezuela’s President Maduro agreed to become part of any peace negotiations with the ELN.

The latest real sector data for July saw both Retail Sales (7.6%) and Manufacturing Production (5.2%) in positive territory, although slightly below expectations.

Later we have Import data which is again expected to be strong but the trade deficit is expected to be modest due to the record exports for the month.

Wishing everyone a good weekend

See link to video summary below (LInkedIn) :

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rupert-stebbings-927b6316a_what-jumps-out-an-eclectic-week-it-has-activity-6976519605640904706-ARwZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

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That is about it for today – remember these are just themes that jump out at me – please refer to your local analyst, economist, salesperson or soothsayer for more details.

My regards to all,

Roops