The Colombian peso weakened to its lowest level in more than three months on Friday, weighed by a widely awaited speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and J.P. Morgan's removal of the currency from its "overweight" portfolio recommendations. The peso fell 0.59 percent from Thursday's closing price, to an intraday low of 1,929.85 pesos to the dollar before trimming losses to close 0.27 percent lower at 1923.80 pesos per dollar.
Yellen on Friday said the Fed may have to raise US interest rates sooner and faster than expected, if the labour market may be tighter than it seems. Higher interest rates tend to boost the allure of the dollar as they raise the yield on some US assets. "Yellen's speech strengthened the dollar on an international level, which is transmitted to Latin America," said Cristian Lancheros, an analyst at the Acciones y Valores brokerage. After Colombia's foreign exchange market closed on Thursday, J.P. Morgan announced that it moved the Colombian peso from "overweight" to "medium-weight" in its GBI-EM model portfolio.
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