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The Forex Market History

The foreign currency exchange market, which also sometimes called forex or just FX, was established in its modern form at about 1971. Prior to that year all foreign currencies where directly tied to the dollar without any floatation. The dollar's rate, at its turn, was attached directly to the price of gold, at those times one ounce of gold was priced at $35. This arrangement was called the Bretton-Woods Agreement and was incited by the end of the second world war. The unstable and crashing financial markets of the world needed some support and stability in order to allow faster growth and recuperation.

The agreement was abandoned at 1971 at its goal was already achieved and many economists felt that it is no more of burden to the foreign currencies than a blessing. At 1973 the floatation of the world currencies started to generate major volumes of work and it was already seen that this was the beginning of the foreign currency exchange market. During the 1980's the computerized revolution helped the forex market to become the biggest financial market in the world by eliminating time zones issues and helping traders to close bids in blink of an eye, even if the other side is on the other side of the planet.