Abelardo De La Espriella won Colombia's presidential election with 49.66% of the vote. His opponent Ivan Cepeda got 48.70%. That's a margin of 250,000 votes in a country of 52 million people.
The gap is less than one percent. Half the country voted for the other guy. De La Espriella will govern a nation where nearly half the electorate picked someone else. Sounds like a recipe for smooth policy implementation and zero legislative gridlock.
Right-wing candidate beats left-wing senator in tight race. Markets will pretend this matters for Colombian peso futures for approximately six hours. Then everyone will remember that Colombia's GDP is smaller than the state of Washington and that nobody trading from their Robinhood account can even spell Bogotá without autocorrect.
Some retail trader in Michigan is already Googling "Colombia ETF exposure" and adding leveraged Latin America plays to his watchlist. He will not look up whether De La Espriella's policies differ from Cepeda's policies. He will not read about Colombia's economic structure or trade relationships. He will see the word "right-wing" and assume that means stocks go up, because that's how his brain works now.
The technical picture remains unchanged. The 200-day moving average does not care who won. Support and resistance levels were not on the ballot. Colombian election results have the same predictive value for your portfolio as a chicken picking lottery numbers, except the chicken has better risk management.
De La Espriella will take office. He will pass some laws. Other laws will fail. The economy will do what it was going to do anyway. And six months from now that Michigan trader will still be holding his Colombia position underwater, wondering why the new president's approval rating didn't save his account.
Photo by Tien Anh Bui on Unsplash
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