Until World War I it was always allegedly feasible to go to the central bank and ask for gold or silver in place of your bank notes. Of course, this very infrequently happened in serious amounts and many state banks stopped keeping enough gold to cover. Now and then such as in Germany after World War I, there would be a disastrous run on the banks, leading to silly inflation and the collapse of the nation’s economy. This was a major factor in the rise of the German fascist party and therefore might be declared to have caused World War II. To prevent an identical disaster occuring in a vulnerable country again, the Bretton Woods agreement was drawn up in 1944. This ‘permanently’ pegged all nationwide currencies to the US buck, and fixed the value of the dollar against gold at $35 per oz. Round the same time, the international financial Fund and World Bank were made to help in maintaining global economic stability. However, states were developing at different rates and in different directions, and in 1971 President Nixon suspended the gold standard. Suddenly it was feasible to trade in currencies, and the fiscal institutions were fast to recognize the potential. Continuously, private stockholders joined in the game and the currency market mushroomed. To deal with the gigantic numbers of potential new clients and because their costs were dropping, brokers started reducing the minimum investment amount. At this point in forex history, daily trading turnover has reached between $3 and $4 trillion, more than the trading volume of all the world’s stock and bonds markets added together.