Forex Trading History

Foreign exchange dates back to ancient times, when traders first began exchanging coins from different countries. However, the foreign exchange itself is the newest of the financial markets. In the last hundred years, the foreign exchange has undergone some dramatic transformations.The Bretton Woods Agreement, set up in 1944, remained intact until the early 1970s. At this conference, representatives from 45 nations came together to discuss the future exchange system.The conference result in the formation of the International Monetary Fund.It produced an agreement that fixed currencies in an exchange rate system that tolerated 10% currency fluctuations to gold values, or to the dollar that was established as the Gold Standard.In 1971, the Bretton Woods Agreement was first tested because of uncontrollable currency rate fluctuations, by 1973 the gold standard was abandoned by president Richard Nixon, currencies where finally allowed to float freely. Thereafter, the foreign exchange quickly established itself as the financial market.Open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week, transactions in foreign exchange gained from about $70 billion a day in the 1980s, to more than $1.5 trillion a day in the year 2000.