Ecopetrol, the heaviest weight in the COLCAP and the centrepiece of the new president’s first address. (Photo internet reproduction)

01 The session in one read

There was no session. Friday 7 August is the Battle of Boyacá, the national holiday marking the 1819 battle outside Tunja that decided Colombia’s independence, and unlike most Colombian holidays it never shifts to the following Monday.

The exchange calendar lists it among eighteen closures for 2026, and the Banco de la República treats it as a bank holiday. The next one comes quickly: Monday 17 August is closed too.

That fixed date is also why the handover happens when it does. De La Espriella was sworn in at the Universidad Santiago de Cali and gave his first address as head of state at the Pichincha garrison in the same city, opening the 2026—2030 term.

So the week’s closing picture is Thursday’s, and it is a picture of a market that lost its footing in the middle of the week and only partly recovered it.

02 The week’s numbers

The headline gain flatters the week. From Tuesday’s close of 2,374.67 to Thursday’s 2,350.44 the index lost 24.23 points, or 1.02%, by The Rio Times’ calculation.

Set against the year, that is a scratch rather than a wound. The COLCAP was still up 14.83% for 2026 as of Tuesday, and its record high of 2,562.00, reached on 27 January, remains the marker to beat.
Live Market IntelligenceColombia — Live Market BoardInside: market breadth, the sector heatmap, currencies & rates, the Latin America scoreboard and the full instrument board.

03 Why it moved — a closed exchange and a change of government

The reason nothing moved on Friday is simple, but what was said that day matters more than usual for the index. Ecopetrol is the heaviest weight in the COLCAP, and the new president devoted a large part of his address to it.

He described the company as having been depleted, citing profits that fell from around 33 trillion pesos in 2022 to nine trillion last year. Recovering it, he said, would be a definitive and absolute priority of his government.

The energy programme reached beyond the company. He committed to authorising fracking under technical standards, framed the use of natural resources as a question of sovereignty, and promised a push to rebuild oil and gas reserves.

That lands on a sector that has been contracting. Gran Tierra Energy agreed on Wednesday to sell its entire Colombian and Ecuadorian business for $1.33 billion, becoming the eighth international producer to leave Colombian exploration in five years.

On the fiscal side came a spending freeze and a structural tax reform meant to simplify the system and curb evasion, with removal of the wealth tax as the named measure. He also said he would respect the independence of the central bank, a pointed break with the previous four years.

04 The week on the exchange

The shape of the week was a slow bleed followed by a small rescue. Monday and Tuesday drifted lower on modest losses, then Wednesday took 1.26% out of the index in one session, with the selling concentrated in two of the largest names, Cibest and ISA.

Tuesday was the outlier for activity rather than price. Turnover reached $198,355 million, an 80.80% jump on the previous day, which is the kind of volume that usually signals repositioning rather than conviction.

Thursday brought the only green session, and it came from outside. Crude settled sharply higher after Iran signalled it might bar some vessels from the Strait of Hormuz, which is straightforwardly good news for an economy that sells crude.

Individual names told a scattered story. ETB rose 6.38% on Tuesday and Grupo Argos preferred shares gained 4.72% on Monday, while Ecopetrol itself barely moved, closing Monday at 2,675 pesos with a 0.19% loss.

05 The peso’s remarkable year

The currency is where Colombia’s story has been all year, and it is worth setting out properly. The dollar has fallen 15.31% against the peso over twelve months, and in July alone the peso gained 9.84%, making it the strongest-performing currency in the world that month.

The mechanics are not mysterious. Colombia’s central bank has held its rate at 12.00% while the United States has come down to a range of 3.50% to 3.75%, and that gap pulls foreign money into peso-denominated assets.

This week showed the pattern in miniature. The dollar closed Tuesday at 3,207.46, eased on Wednesday on turnover of US$1,295 million, and then dropped again on Thursday to 3,180.94, a fall of 26.52 pesos across the two sessions.

Thursday’s session was busy rather than jittery. Set-FX recorded more than US$1.284 billion across 1,446 deals, with the dollar opening at 3,190.00, touching 3,193.00 at the top and 3,148.75 at the bottom before settling.

Not everyone expects it to last. Bancolombia’s Grupo Cibest still forecasts an average of 3,878 pesos across 2026, well above where the rate sits now, citing fiscal uncertainty and the sovereign rating downgrade as sources of upward pressure.

There is also official weight on the other side of the trade. The Banco de la República is running a programme to buy up to US$4 billion to rebuild international reserves, which puts a steady, non-commercial bid for dollars into the market.

06 The regional scoreboard

While Bogotá rested, the rest of the region spent Friday trading a weak United States jobs report. Mexico’s IPC took it best, rising 0.82% to 66,938.64 on a market closely tied to the American cycle.

Brazil went the other way, with the Ibovespa down 1.73% as global investors rotated out of emerging markets and back into American technology shares. Chile eased 0.17% after a week that still finished 2.18% higher, and Argentina’s Merval fell 0.45% in a sixth consecutive decline.

07 The technical picture

The COLCAP goes into Monday at 2,350.44, in the middle of a band it has traded either side of for most of the past three weeks. The round 2,400 mark is the barrier overhead, and it has not been tested on convincing volume since the post-election reversal.

Below, the long rising line that has carried the index since last autumn runs well underneath the current level, which leaves room before any real damage. The caveat is participation: turnover in the domestic heavyweights has been thin outside Tuesday’s spike, and a four-day gap in trading tends to make the first session back sharper than the news alone deserves.

08 What to watch

• Monday’s reopening: The first session after the handover is the market’s only chance to price four days of announcements at once.
• Ecopetrol leadership: The government has signalled changes at the top of the company; names will matter more than the promise.
• The tax bill: Removal of the wealth tax has been named, but the full reform and how it squares with a spending freeze have not.
• The peso’s floor: Watch whether the central bank’s reserve buying slows the currency’s climb, and whether 3,150 holds as a level.
• Oil and the Strait of Hormuz: Crude gave back ground on Friday as reopening talks resurfaced, and Colombian assets follow it closely.
• Another closure: Monday 17 August is also a holiday, so August offers fewer trading days than usual.

Background: Gran Tierra to Sell Colombia, Ecuador Assets for US$1.33B.

Background: Latin America Stock Markets 2026: Ibovespa, Merval, COLCAP, IPSA and IPC Guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was there no trading in Colombia on Friday?

7 August is the Battle of Boyacá holiday, one of the few Colombian holidays that never moves to a Monday. The exchange, the banks and the currency market were all shut, which is also why the presidential handover is held on that date.

So what is the COLCAP’s closing level for the week?

2,350.44, set on Thursday 6 August. That figure stands until trading resumes on Monday 10 August.

Why has the Colombian peso been so strong?

Colombia’s central bank rate of 12.00% is far above the 3.50% to 3.75% range in the United States, which pulls foreign money into peso assets. A weaker dollar worldwide and steady remittance inflows have done the rest.

What did the new president say about Ecopetrol?

He called recovering the company a definitive and absolute priority, pointing to profits that fell from around 33 trillion pesos in 2022 to nine trillion last year. He also said he would authorise fracking under technical standards to rebuild oil and gas reserves.

Are there more market closures coming?

Yes. Monday 17 August is also a holiday, so August gives Colombian investors fewer trading days than a normal month.

Daily series

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