Peru

Peru supervises securities markets through the Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores and banking through the SBS, with the Banco Central de Reserva del Perú running monetary policy. Retail leveraged CFD trading falls outside the domestic licensing framework, and residents use foreign brokers.

The most managed float in the region

Peru's central bank describes its regime as a float, but it intervenes in the foreign exchange market far more actively than most, and it holds foreign reserves that are very large relative to the size of the economy — among the highest ratios in the world.

The result is a currency that behaves unlike its neighbours: the sol has been notably stable through periods when the Colombian, Chilean and Argentine currencies moved sharply, including through domestic political turmoil that would ordinarily have produced a sell-off.

For a trader this carries a precise lesson. A central bank with large reserves and a demonstrated willingness to use them is a participant you are trading against, and it has objectives, resources and information that you do not. Positions predicated on a currency reflecting the country's political news have repeatedly failed here — not because the analysis was wrong, but because the analysis omitted the largest player in the market.

Dollarisation

Peru went through a period of very high inflation in the late 1980s, and dollars became the store of value for a generation. Deposit dollarisation has declined substantially since, as confidence in the sol rebuilt, but dollar accounts remain normal and dollars circulate. That makes funding a dollar-denominated trading account cheaper here than in most of the region.

Regulation

The SMV publishes a register of authorised participants and warnings about entities offering investment services without authorisation. For a foreign broker, the licensing jurisdiction's rules and compensation scheme apply entirely — verify the licence on that regulator's own site.

Cautions

Schemes promising fixed returns from currency trading recur throughout the region. A guaranteed percentage is not a trading result.