The Colombian peso Wednesday weakened Wednesday at the opening of the
session amid uncertainty in global financial markets in spite of an
emergency rescue plan for heavyweight American International Group Inc.
(AIG).
The peso was trading at COP2,125 at 9:40 a.m. EDT in active trading, down from Tuesday’s closing mark of COP2,104.
Laura Cabrera, researcher at local brokerage Acciones de Colombia, said
the country’s largest bank, Banco de Bogota (BOGOTA.BO), and the local
unit of Spanish bank Santander (STD) bought greenbacks amid risk
aversion in emerging markets.
Even though the U.S. government announced an emergency rescue plan for
AIG, which may involve a bridge loan of up to $85 billion, “markets
believe the insurance company will need more capital to come afloat,”
Cabrera said.
In the local bond market, the yield on the benchmark domestic paper
maturing in 2020 was trading at 11.855% at 9:37 a.m. EDT, from 11.839%
on Tuesday.
(Dow Jones)