Sunrise Over El Dorado : Alianza : February 11th 2019

DAILY THOUGHT : Whilst draining one of the biggest rivers in Latam was never a good solution it was good to see images of EPM's Hidroituango project with water pouring over the sluices once again later last week - the only question is when the country can expect some energy to be produced because at the moment all we have is literally the world's largest water fountain.

A very poor day in terms of volume (USD21mn) as the COLCAP dropped 0.23% , closing @ 1468.77pts. The most traded stocks were ECOPETROL (USD 4mn), PFBCOLOM (USD 3mn) and CORFICOLF (USD 2.3mn) and in terms of performance it was CLH (+5.73%), CORFICOLF (+5.29%) and EXITO (USD 1.27%) heading in the preferred direction whilst CONCONCRETO (-4.8%) ,PFGRUPOARGOS (-2.58%) and CNEC (-2.46%) fell. In terms of technicals market players will be keeping a beady eye on the 200 SMAVG as we closed firmly below on Friday - today despite continued Brexit uncertainty and the prospect of the US Govt closing down the markets are looking solid so hopefully the chance to start moving in the right direction .

The PESO was fractionally stronger on Friday as it gained 0.05% to close at 3.116,05, volume was an acceptable USD1.03bn.

The Bond market had a fairly quiet day with the benchmark 2024 unchanged at 6.00% whilst the 2032 fell 1.3bps to 7.028%.

Amongst the those watching the oil and gas sector the there is a lot of interest at the decision to change six new VPs - the company describe this as a ‘fresh start’ to its operational tasks, aimed at starting a new phase within the company. They reiterated that the new team has the mission of achieving a greater integration in areas like E&P and transportation, among others, assuring the highest standards of Corporate Governance. Locals are used to big upheavals at the company but these are big changes and hopefully won't cause disruption. Meanwhile the terrorists were back at work over the weekend with another attack on the Caño Limon pipeline, the company are taking the usual contingencies however with the collapse of the ELN peace talks this is set to be a busy year for those charged with repairing such incidents. In 2018 there were 107 total attacks of which 89 were on this same pipelines which was up on the 62 of 2017.