Brief history of the FX market

Merchants and travellers who trekked along the Silk Road through Asia selling and transporting their precious wares and traders in ancient Babylonian marketplaces may not have a great deal of relevance to your life today, but they were among the earliest participants in the foreign exchange markets. Any time that these border-hopping, business-savvy people wanted to exchange the currency unit of one country or region for that of another, the two parties involved in the transaction would have to settle on an acceptable rate of exchange in order for the transaction to take place. By doing so, traders from the Far East were able to trade successfully with traders from Mediterranean countries and vice versa. The ability to conduct foreign exch....