For this first February post, I am stepping back to cover a broader topic important for international investors to understand. We will talk about FX regimes, capital controls, and black market FX—parallel market foreign exchange in PC lingo. Few investors from the US or Europe born after 1980 have never had to deal with the uncertainty surrounding foreign exchange rules, buying, or selling international securities. The dollar has been floating since 1971, and although many European countries have switched from Francs, Lira and D-Marks to Euros, the rules have been pretty straightforward. We’ll let our currency float and occasionally talk it down (rarely up) if it appreciates (depreciates) too much.