Interesting Forex Facts Part 3

11. Before the advent of the Internet, in the mid 1980s, there was another form of electronic Forex trading, which was developed by Reuters and was called (yes, you guessed it) “Reuters Dealing”.  By today’s standards that system would be terribly outdated, as it was essentially a closed-network chat system, but back then it was considered to be pretty sophisticated.

12. The GBP/USD currency pair is called “cable” because before the fibre-optic technology and satellite communication the London and New York stock exchanges were connected through a giant steel cable under the Atlantic Ocean. 

13. More than $5.3 trillion are traded on the foreign exchange market every day.

14. The Forex trading daily volume is 53 times larger than the New York stock exchange.

15. The USD is the most popular currency and it is involved in 87% of all trades.          

More Interesting Forex Facts

6. The Bretton Woods Accord was signed after World War 2 and it allowed for currencies to fluctuate within 1% to the respective currencies par.

7. President Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods Accord and the fixed rates of exchange, which eventually led to the free-floating currency system.

8. The Forex markets were actually forced to close between 1972 and 1973 because the Bretton Woods Accord was ineffective.

9. The true Forex market as we know it today essentially began in 1973, because that is when nation-state, banking trade and controlled foreign exchange ended and complete floating, relatively free conditions of a market characteristic of the situation in contemporary times began.

10. It was Reuters that introduced computer monitors in June 1973, which replaced the antiquated trading through telephones and telex.

Some Interesting Forex Trivia

1. Currency trading is hardly the invention of modern times. There is evidence in the Talmudic writings that “money-changers” who exchanged different currencies operated within the cities, mostly out of street stalls or from within the local temples.

2. The first real bank was Monte Dei Paschi di Siena and it was founded in 1472 in Tuscany, Italy. The bank is in operation to this very day.

3. The gold standard was introduced back in 1880 and many consider this to be the beginning of the modern foreign exchange.

4. At the beginning of the 1900s there were only two foreign exchange brokers in London.

5. But by 1913 half of the global foreign exchange was performed by using the pound sterling.