Commodities and Colombia in the same thread... my eyes are wet.
I've always wondered why you have a Medellin flag as a profile pic.
Indeed Colombia is a COMM exporting economy to give you an idea the exports mix is sth like: Oil ~25% Coal~15%, Gold~10%, Coffee~10%, Bananas and Flowers ~10%, the rest as small potatoes and mostly still concentrated on the primary sector of the economy.
But that breakdown right there already gives you an idea of what variables you might (from a COMM COT side look at).
I can speak of my experience with USD/COP and other EM currencies, b
ack in the day I used to find useful monitoring some of the basic Macro stuff like:
- Local GDP Growth, Unemployment, Household and Corporate Debt, disposable income
- Inflation, CPI(IPC), PPI(IPP), gasoline/diesel-acpm/electricity prices, break-even inflation
- Balance of Trade and Payments,Net Foreign/Offshore flows into financial account side
- Capital controls, CB Intervention, PPP, PBA and PPC Bank indicators (Net L/S positions on USD)
- USD vs COP rates differentials: CB, FXMM, Bond Yields, Swap Rates (DTF-LIBOR now IBR - SOFR)
- EM LATAM appetite, BRL, CLP, EMBI Spread (for peer relative analysis and contagion - e.g. Lula Shock)
- Country Creditworthiness, CDS Spread, Tax Revenue and Reforms (1 every 1.5-2 years)
Other useful stuff:
- Political Cycles in LATAM
- ENSO, Nino/Nina predictions, for crops and power generation mix
- USD/NOK spurious correlation
Rgds,
M