Macro
MexicoThe IPC fell 1.54%, the region’s second-worst equity performer today, with the peso pressured by a firmer dollar and Brent back above US$100; June headline inflation held at a five-year-low 3.37% and Banxico stays paused at 6.50%, with first-half-July CPI due today. (Rio Times) (Mexico News Daily)
LatAmBrent crude roared back above US$100/bbl after Houthi missiles struck Saudi tankers in the Red Sea — a fiscal windfall for net exporters Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, but an inflation shock for import-dependent Central America and the Caribbean. (Rio Times)
BrazilThe Selic sits at 15.00% with the central bank flagging heightened inflation concerns; most panelists still expect only one more 25bp cut in 2026 as Copom weighs unanchored expectations against a cooling IPCA. (FocusEconomics)
ColombiaInflation is expected to accelerate toward 6.3% in 2026 on a large minimum-wage increase and excess demand; BanRep resumed tightening in June, hiking more than expected, and remains the region’s hawkish outlier into its 31 Jul decision. (Banco de la República)
Financial & Insurance Markets
LatAmThe 1 July renewal completed firmly buyer-favourable: property-cat XoL rates down 15–20% as Bermuda, London and MGA capacity crowds in, ceding commissions rise, and parametric/structured products move mainstream. (Artemis) (Insurance Business)
ChileThis week’s catastrophic flooding lands on a market where insurance penetration sits below 5% of GDP, a fresh test of the region’s protection gap even as reinsurance capacity stays abundant and cheap; Codelco has halted surface operations at its Andina mine. (Rio Times)
LatAmFitch notes alternative reinsurance capital use in the region remains constrained but sees cat bonds and legacy-run-off solutions widening Latin America’s insurance debt market over time. (Artemis)
CaribbeanCCRIF’s parametric pool, grown 9% to US$1.57bn, stays untriggered YTD and anchors a deepening disaster-risk-financing market that cat-bond investors watch as El Niño dampens Atlantic activity. (Artemis)
Political
BrazilA former Navy commander was sentenced to 24 years for plotting a coup, a landmark moment of judicial accountability for the armed forces ahead of the October general election. (Rio Times)
ColombiaThe Senate handed president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella his first win, making a wealth-tax reform reaching foreign residents (threshold ~US$620,000 net worth) very unlikely to pass; Indigenous communities in Nariño began an indefinite road blockade on 21 Jul. (Rio Times)
PeruKeiko Fujimori, who won June’s razor-thin runoff, is inaugurated 28 Jul as the country’s first woman president, alongside a newly bicameral Congress and a right-leaning economic agenda. (HSF Kramer)
ArgentinaInflation slowed for a third straight month to its lowest since August, a win for President Milei, who heads to Peru for Fujimori’s inauguration and bilateral meetings with Ecuador’s Noboa and Colombia’s president-elect. (Buenos Aires Times)
Regulatory
BrazilSUSEP continues bedding in the new Insurance Contract Law (Law 15.040) and reinsurance/retrocession reforms (consultation 14/2025), advancing toward EIOPA equivalence — a live watch item for cedants on claims-control clauses. (Skadden)
MexicoCNSF, an IAIS member, runs its Solvency II-equivalent LISF framework; Fitch’s flagged tax reforms remain the live 2026 pressure on insurer capital and profitability, with no new 24h regulatory action. (Reinsurance News)
LatAmSkadden’s prudential-solvency survey documents steady convergence toward Solvency II-style risk-based capital across the region; IAIS NatCat protection-gap themes remain the standing regulatory backdrop. (Skadden)
El Niño / Climate & Nat Cat
LatAmNOAA CPC and GFDL’s July experimental runs point to a strengthening, potentially “super” El Niño intensifying through the fall and peaking late 2026, with a 63% chance sea-surface temperatures exceed 2.0°C (a very strong event) and a 97% chance it persists into early spring 2027. (NOAA CPC) (GFDL)
ChileMajor nat cat ongoing: an El Niño-linked frontal system has killed at least 13 and isolated 104,271 people across Coquimbo and Huasco, destroying or severely damaging over 1,100 homes; a state of catastrophe covers regions normally as dry as the Atacama. (The Watchers) (Rio Times)
AndesThe event pairs intense coastal flooding and landslides on the Pacific coast of Peru and Ecuador against drought across the Central American Dry Corridor, the northern Andes and the Brazilian Amazon; anchoveta stocks face collapse or southward migration. (i4sea) (WRI)
LatAmFAO and WFP warn the event could push 36 million people into hunger, with NOAA raising the odds of a record-shattering peak toward 81%; the 2015–16 super El Niño left 3.5m food-insecure in Central America’s Dry Corridor alone. (Tech Times)
CaribbeanCCRIF’s US$1.57bn pool remains untriggered YTD; El Niño’s tendency to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity underpins below-average storm-count expectations that cat-bond and parametric investors are tracking closely. (Artemis)
Coming Up
28 JulChileBCCh rate decision, its first read since the flood catastrophe.
28 JulPeruKeiko Fujimori inaugurated president, the country’s first woman head of state.
28 JulBrazilIBGE releases IPCA-15 mid-month inflation, the last read before Copom.
31 JulColombiaBanRep rate decision with a fresh Monetary Policy Report, after June inflation hit ~6.1%.
5 AugBrazilCopom decision (meeting 4–5 Aug); markets weigh whether easing resumes from the 15.00% Selic.
On the Radar
ChileThe scale of the flood loss, hitting just before the 28 Jul BCCh decision, is a fresh reminder of how thinly LatAm nat cat risk is insured even as reinsurance rates soften 15–20%; watch first insured-loss estimates.
LatAmA strengthening super El Niño into late 2026 tests parametric triggers and cat-bond attachment assumptions at the very moment cat pricing is falling — a widening gap between softening rates and rising physical risk.
LatAmBrent above US$100 on Red Sea tanker attacks splits the region: a fiscal cushion for exporters, an inflation and current-account headwind for Central American and Caribbean importers into H2.