FXCM Research Team

In 1973, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) placed an oil embargo on allies of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Until March of 1974, exorbitant energy prices plagued the global economy, prompting the creation of the petrodollar.

Successful traders approach trading with a clearly defined and thoroughly tested strategy. Most traders evaluate the hypothetical future performance of their strategy by measuring the profit or loss of the strategy run on historical data. But is measuring historical profitability enough? Historical profitability provides only a small piece of information about a trading strategy, while another factor that may be important to a trader is the riskiness of their strategy. The…

The Special Drawing Right (SDR) is an international reserve asset. Created by the IMF in 1969, SDRs are used to facilitate transactions and supplement IMF member country reserves. An SDR is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members.

Layering is an illegal tactic used to manipulate markets as a means of driving the price of an asset up or down, which is followed by a trade in the opposite direction. Learn more about layering at FXCM Insights.

The alpha and beta are important terms within the investing world, whether one is involved with stocks, mutual funds or ETFs. Learn more about these terms at FXCM Insights.

Stop running is the practice of manipulating the price action of a security in order to trigger a bulk execution of stop loss orders at market. A legal trading strategy, it involves driving a market to a desired location and profiting from the ensuing pricing fluctuations.

The surprise outcome of the 2016 United Kingdom Brexit Referendum sent valuations of the British pound sterling (GBP) into chaos. Upon the final vote tally coming in at 51.9% for "leave" to 48.1% for "remain," the voting public showed its support of the U.K. withdrawing from the European Union (EU). The aftermath of the Brexit vote made it clear that a new era for both the U.K. and GBP had…

Since its creation in 1973 by the Fed, the trade-weighted U.S. dollar index has been used to track the dollar's value against the currencies of major American trading partners.

Learn more about what constitutes a currency war, which occurs when multiple countries devalue or depreciate their currencies at the same time.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) is a subsidiary of the Japan Exchange Group (JPX). It is the leading stock market in Japan and ranks consistently in the top five global equities venues in terms of capitalisation. Prominent listings include Sony and Mitsubishi.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government. It regulates the futures, options, derivatives and swaps markets. Learn more about how the CFTC functions at FXCM.