History of Reserve Currencies

The reserve currency is the main currency that is used by many governments and institutions as foreign reserves. Also it is used to price most commodities. This first graph shows the reserve currencies throughout history, by country. Currently the dollar is the reserve currency. Before that the British pound was the most used currency in the world.

J.P. Morgan

This graph shows the names of the reserve currencies throughout history. From the aureus coin in the first few centuries after Christ. The gulden being the dominant currency in the 17th century. It is not clear to me that the two graphs seem to have interchanged Spain and France. Who knows the correct order?

Now is the question: which currency will follow the dollar?

Zero Hedge

Dollars per Euro Exchange Rate (1999-2011)

The graph shows the euro/dollar exchange rate. In other words it shows how many dollars you get with one euro. Currently you get 1,30 dollar for one euro.

The average exchange rate since the launch of the euro was 1,20 dollar per euro.

Size Of The Financial Markets

In 2010 world Gross domestic product was 63 trillion dollars. The financial industry is many times bigger than the value of all goods and services produced in the world. Shares and bonds are about the same value of world GDP, but derivatives trading and foreign currency transactions are ten and fifteen times bigger than world gdp.

Der Spiegel

The Dollar Exchange Rate: declining

The dollar weighted exchange rate (against miltiple currencies) has been falling since the beginning of this millenium as you can see in this graph from The Economist:

Due to a request by the Economist this graph has been removed. 

View the graph here