What Jumps Out: The Week Ahead

The weekend press had little to discuss when it came to the economy as attention was drawn to Hurricane Julia which struck the San Andres Archipelago. Fortunately, the damage seems to be considerably less severe than in 2018.

Aside from that, the tax reform was again being subjected to forensic accounting with various sectors discussing why it shouldn’t be them that pays the bill…but the other guys. If there has been a constant in Colombia since the tax reform first saw the light of day in August, it is that many people are discussing why they shouldn’t be taxed more, but no one seems to be offering feasible alternatives. Colombia after all is a country that has to increase its revenues in order to move forward.

Finance Minister Ocampo followed Public Credit Director Acosta by stating that Colombia neither needs nor will impose capital controls. Central bank head Villar also stated that they simply don’t work. This after Thursday President Petro made mention of taxing hot money—the horse has bolted but hopefully this reassurance will help. The Peso closed Friday at $4622 – again close to record lows despite the pop in oil prices, will be a focus this week.

On energy and inflation, we have seen GEB join EPM who formally pledged to reduce energy prices by up to 8.7%, as part of a national pact to reduce costs in the sector.

Today we have the Consumer Confidence data from Fedesarrollo for September. Last month we saw it improve to -2.4%, this time a decline to -3.2% is expected.

On Friday from DANE comes the real sector data for August, modest YoY increases in both Retail and Industrial sectors are expected.  Also on Friday we will have the latest Central bank survey.

See link to video summary below (LinkedIn):

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rupert-stebbings-927b6316a_what-jumps-out-the-week-ahead-the-weekend-activity-6985209517927972864-waZn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

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

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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