What Jumps Out: Another Week in Colombia with a Mixed Bag of Economic Headlines

This week featured another mixed bag of headlines to get through.

First off, Colombian President Gustavo Petro spoke at the United Nations, world peace and sustainability the main themes, although he did delve off into other areas. Overall little to report.

Lot of headlines about the Colombian peso being the global top performer in 2023. To reiterate, this isn’t outperformance — it is a snapback from the wonton erroneous selling in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Fedesarrollo published its financial survey for September. Overall, there were few radical changes but we saw inflation expectations for 2023 rise and, accordingly, overnight expectations are also higher.

Imports for July, according to National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), dropped by 28.2% year-over-year. A weak figure indeed — but as exports were weaker that generated another $600 million USD trade deficit for the month. The domestic slowdown in demand continues.

Camacol Nacional reported that new home sales fell 52.2% in August to 8,699 units, as interest rates continue to bite. For the same reason, household spending for August (per RADDAR CKG LATAM) dropped 3.2% to 82.4 billion Colombian pesos.

The reform process continues but there have been no real developments to speak to, simply more edging forward.

Nutresa shareholders, as expected, voted through the Gilinski share swap, and the market is awaiting this development, which includes Grupo SURA and Grupo Argos.

Lastly, the markets showed a little more volume this week, although equities have yet to catch the imagination locally.

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