6 Interesting Forex Facts Most Traders Don’t Know

1. How did the first Forex market look?

The barter system is the oldest method of exchanging goods for other goods. It was first introduced in 6000BC by Mesopotamia tribes. Back in the day, salt and spices were used as the main mediums of exchange. This is how the first-ever form of foreign exchange looked like. Eventually, the first gold coins were produced in the 6th century BC, and they acted as a currency. Although gold coins were widely accepted as a medium of exchange, they appeared to be impractical because they were quite heavy. In 1875, the countries adopted the Gold more…

Aussie retreated before dollar

Australia

EURUSD

The pair continues to grow but its pace looks more like creeping. Yesterday the pair managed to accelerate and reached 1.1340 but it returned to its main trend by the end of the day, having dropped below 1.13. Now again the trades are going on above that line, while investors are not in a rush to extremely stress statistics from Europe before FOMC comments on monetary policy. But here they should pay attention to more than expected indicators from Germany. Import prices increased at once by 0.7% being the first exceed during 11 months. This did not save annual decline that more…

Asia is on the defensive

EUR/USD

The single currency continued its trip up on Monday. As a result, it reached a high of 1.2440. Ifo Business Climate proved to be better than expected and grew for the first time since April, while had been expected to fall. The index grew from 103.2 to 104.7 against the expected 103.0. Both the components of the index rose – Current Assessment and Expectations. Under such conditions growth of the single currency could be stronger, but it didn’t happen because of the pressure the euro suffers from the expectations of a more active extension of the ECB’s balance for the sake more…

Deceitful weakening of USD

EUR/USD

The US dollar opened the week with a gap against the EU currencies, but immediately lost its advantage. The negative factor here was the ECB’s mood for further easing of the monetary policy and expansion of the incentives by possible bond purchases. After Draghi’s speech to the Parliament at the end of the previous week it became more possible that during the press-conference at the beginning of December it will be announced how fast and on what terms the European CB will purchase public debt of the EU countries. As it is absolutely clear that the current bond purchases are miserable more…

FOMC faces headwinds

EUR/USD

USD fell under pressure yesterday after the release of the FOMC’s meeting minutes in October. Then the Committee stopped bond purchases, so market participants expected to see the discussion if it was reasonable in the minutes. Among the voting members there was only one dissident – Narayana Kocherlakota, who appealed for further QE until inflation reached the target rates. It is an extremely dovish position, but it was long known to the market and so didn’t arouse any surprise. The minutes were remarkable for comments that inflation would remain low for a while despite the large-scale quantitative easing, which was already more…