Colombia’s benchmark IGBC stock index rose 0.3% to 11,641.37 points on Monday, led by the country’s largest retailer, Almacenes Exito SA, which gained 1.5% on positive Christmas retail-sales data.
Retail sales rose 2.9% during the Christmas holiday season, according to the consultancy firm Raddar, cited by local newspaper Portafolio.
Shares of state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol SA gained 0.4% to COP2,495 as crude futures rose above US$80.
“Ecopetrol had a small rise compared to the rise in oil,” said Julian Ujueta, a stock analyst with local brokerage Suma Valores. “Even though the price per barrel keeps going up, people are skeptical about the results that Ecopetrol is going to announce [in late February].”
Ecopetrol’s weighting in the IGBC index was reduced to 21% for the first quarter of 2010, from 32% in the pervious quarter, the stock exchange said in a statement. Colombia’s largest holding company, Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana SA, saw its weighting in the IGBC rise to 11%, from 7.3% last quarter, while the country’s largest cement maker, Cementos Argos, had its weighting increased to 8.1% from 4.9%.
On the debt markets, the yield on Colombia’s benchmark peso-denominated bond maturing in 2020 rose to 8.549% from 8.467% on December 30.
The peso strengthened to COP2,013, from COP2,043 on December 30. The Colombian markets had been closed since then for the new year.
