Colombia’s peso fell as a meeting between President Juan Manuel Santos and the central bank’s board sparked speculation officials will announce additional measures to ease the peso’s rally.
The peso dropped 0.5 percent to 1,817.35 per dollar at 10:56 a.m. New York time, from 1,809.25 yesterday. Today’s decline pared the peso’s jump this year to 12.5 percent, the second-best performance after the Japanese yen among all currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
The meeting between Santos, his economic team and central bankers to discuss the economy was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. New York time, according to the presidential website. In an interview published this week in La Republica newspaper, Santos said officials will “soon” announce more measures.
“The peso should continue with a weakening trend in the short term until the new measures are known and the market evaluates how far the central bank and the government are willing to go and how far they can go” to ease gains in the peso, said Felipe Campos, head analyst at Bogota-based brokerage Alianza Valores.
The yield on the nation’s benchmark 11 percent bonds due 2020 rose 3 basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 7 percent, according to Colombia’s stock exchange. The bond’s price fell 0.209 centavo to 127.542 centavos per peso.
(Andrea Jaramillo, Bloomberg)