2010 — Laying the foundations
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And so, began 2010!
Global economies started putting procedures in place to prevent more financial catastrophes like we saw only a couple of years earlier. On July 21, US President Barak Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in response to the 2008 crisis.
Aiming to improve financial stability and consumer protection, many have debated the effect of the Dodd-Frank Act. It did however, as of April 2017, return almost $12 billion to 29 million consumers!
Then along came the Fed, announcing that it would increase its Quantitative Easing programme by buying $600 billion of Treasury securities by the end of Q2 in 2011. Its aim was to induce mild inflation in order to spur demand in the US. At the same time that the US was complaining about China’s manipulation of the Yuan, however, the QE programme enforced by the Fed drove the USD down… It was at this point that the World Trade Organization’s Director General warned that there is huge potential for a return to tit-for-tat protectionism… Hmmm, seems familiar…
Across the Atlantic, the EU was also responding to the ongoing financial crisis by establishing the European Systematic Risk Board. On December 16, the ESRB burst onto the scene to have macroprudential oversight of the EU financial system. Its aims were simple; mitigate risk for continued financial stability and maintain economic growth from the financial sector.
Aside from gigantic regulatory responses across the globe, the retail FX market was once again boosted by new technology, namely, the release of the MT5 platform. It was released as an upgrade from the world-renowned MT4, by MetaQuotes. Brokers could now give their clients access to more markets through one universal trading platform, with additional time frames added including 11 types of minute charts, 7 types of hourly charts and the daily, weekly and yearly time-frames.
Sadly, for MetaQuotes, the hype just wasn’t enough back then, with uptake of the MT5 being quite slow. Even though there were so many improvements, they didn’t seem to be ground-breaking enough to pull traders away from the familiar MT4. As the popularity of the MT4 remained strong, most brokers kept providing the MT4 to their clients rather than splashing out on the MT5 licence.
So, as the MT5 wasn’t such a hit, did it get the ball rolling in 2011? Stay tuned tomorrow to find out!
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