There wasn’t a great deal of optimism from currency traders when the euro began trading in 1999. The FX playing field had just become much smaller, trading floors were quieter, and no one quite knew what to make of this new currency. Many traders concluded that the most profitable days of foreign exchange were behind them.
| "If I look back now, I probably thought: ‘This is definitely going to contract the amount of money we can make’" |
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"If I look back now, I probably thought: ‘This is definitely going to contract the amount of money we can make,’" says Kevin Rodgers, Deutsche Bank’s global head of FX trading and options. Then at Bankers Trust, Rodgers had been an ERM trader, which through the 1990s had been a hugely profitable trade, if a trader managed to understand the idiosyncrasies of the cross rates, trading bands and interest rates.
The late 1990s had been heady days for those looking to second-guess what the euro’s conversion rate would be at launch by trading the old European currencies in bands against each other.