The real is dropping like a stone-now about 3.8 reals/US$. I feel that Brazil is headed for hyperinflation, as the government is spending madly, and Brazil’s credit rating is now at “junk” status. So, how can i profit from this? Can I buy currency futures or simply sell reals (short)?
Yes. There is Wikipedia article on currency futures.
If you have to ask, you’re probably too late.
Indeed, I’ve always heard that currency trading devours amateur investors.
Currency traders hate this local woman! Learn the simple five dollar trick that lets her make THOUSANDS every day!
Indeed, if you’ve discovered through a mainstream media outlet the the value is plummeting, by the time you can get any investment in to attempt to profit from it, you’re going to be too late, as everyone in the industry has presumably known about the factors that caused it before it was reported by the media, and is a step ahead of you. If you’re going to make an investment (or borrow a bunch) in foreign currency based on this sort of information, you need to look more at fundamentals of the situation than what’s going on with the market price. The fact that it “collapsed” suggests that you should be buying it at cut-rate prices, not borrowing it, but in order to know whether that’s the right plan, you need to know the fundamentals. And as an amateur investor, you probably don’t.
If you want to know exactly what you do, you get someone to lend you foreign currency, exchange it into US dollars, pool it in with the rest of the money you have in your investment portfolio, then at some later date buy the foreign currency hopefully at a better rate than when you got the loan, and repay the loan.
Or you could use futures which streamline the deal but only allow for very specific trading patterns. That is, they’ll generally require you to either provide or buy a specific amount of foreign currency on a specific date. You presumably want to sell/write/short futures that require you to provide foreign currency at a later date, as it will be cheaper then than it is now. Of course, the futures are probably already priced such that you won’t actually make money on it.
Top secret memo?
Would you care to put links in your OPs?
This is sooo easy.
Buy up a ton of reales, sell 'em in Germany. Those guys are dropping the Euro (it’s a secret, but I have the dope) and they’ll need some kind of currency to spend on Oktoberfest.
Invest in Brazilian Bikini Waxes…people always need these in tough times
It’s like the old story of how when a shoe-shine boy started giving Rockefeller stock-buying tips, he knew it was time to sell everything and get out of the market.
When the news that a foreign currency is about to collapse reaches guys like you and me, it’s already too late to profit from it.
I was there in the 80’s. Inflation was so bad that phones and vending/pinball machines required special tokens to operate, because if you set up the device to use local coins, you would have to redo them every day! Not feasible.
So, you make the machine use the special token, then just adjust the price of the token. They would go up daily.
Of course, as an avid pinball player, I bought them in bulk, and a week later, I was practically playing for free! That is how fast the inflation was back then in the Good Old Cruzero Days.
So, go to Brazil, buy up a shit-load of pinball tokens, wait a week or two, and sell them for much more than you paid!
The only problem is now you have twice as much money, and its probably worth less than when you started.
So, I would say sell drugs. 
If you search for “brazilian real futures” you’ll see that contracts a year out aren’t all that low. So if you really think they’ll drop, that’s an option.
Currency futures are good for when you’re doing lots of business in another country and want to add some certainty to your plans. E.g. for making payroll at your factory.
You know what they say on Wall Street: buy on the rumor, sell on the top secret memo reported on Buzzfeed.
It was almost as bad in Israel in the early-mid 80’s. To this day, I hate carrying cash, because even though the currency has been stable for decades, I still have this nagging feeling that if I don’t spend now it it’ll be worthless next week.
There is a presumption around that ralph is an amateur; I could well believe he writes columns for The Economist.
The Canvey Island Economist.
N/m too early for snark
Not Real-ly