Colombia, South America’s second-largest economy, could see its sovereign debt rating climb further into investment-grade territory as Moody’s Investors Service sees signs of potential upgrade.
Moody’s senior analyst Mauros Leos told Bloomberg Colombia shares traits with countries that have slightly higher ratings. The ratings agency currency rates Colombia Baa3, the lowest investment grade offered by Moody’s.
Standard & Poor’s rates Colombia BBB, higher than the BBB- the ratings agency lowered Brazil and Russia to earlier this year. [ETFs Deal With Brazil Downgrade]
Many emerging markets bond ETFs are dominated by Brazilian and Russian debt, but there is a chance Colombia will be a larger part of some of those funds in the future. In March, J.P. Morgan said it plans to increase Colombia’s weighting in the GBI-EM Global Diversified Index to 8.05% from 3.24% while the country’s weight in the GBI-EM Global Index could more than triple to 5.6% from 1.81%. [More Colombia in Your EM Bond ETF]
Currently, the Market Vectors Emerging Markets Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: EMAG) features one of the larger weights to Colombia sovereign debt at 4.9%, making Colombia the ETF’s seventh-largest country allocation. EMAG has a 30-day SEC yield of 4.21% and a modified duration of 5.14 years.
Under Moody’s ratings, Colombia is rated the same as India, Indonesia and Turkey and one notch below Brazil and Peru, according to Bloomberg. Among South American economies, only Peru’s expected to grow faster than Colombia’s this year.