20 Most Influential People in FX - Forex Market

Written by Boris Schlossberg, Currency Strategist

Who are the people that influence FX markets? Generally they tend to be the top monetary and Treasury officials from the nations with the world's most liquid currencies. In many subtle ways these men and women can often exercise a greater degree of control over our lives than even elected officials. Certainly they possess tremendous power in the FX market.
Generally, three factors tend to move prices in the FX market

Fundamental economic data Geo-Political events Comments from the world's top policy makers While enormous amount of time is spent analyzing the two topmost categories, we thought it might be quite useful to focus in on the third. Who are the people that influence FX markets? Generally they tend to be the top monetary and Treasury officials from the nations with the world's most liquid currencies. In many subtle ways these men and women can often exercise a greater degree of control over our lives than even elected officials. Certainly they possess tremendous power in the FX market. You will note that we have consciously omitted national leaders. Thus, George Bush, Gerhard Shroeder, Tony Blair and many others are not on the list. This is no way diminishes their importance or capacity to impact the market. However, given the fact that in FX markets we trade money, it is the monetary authorities that have the most immediate and persistent effect on day to day trading and therefore are most worthy of note. Thus without further ado we present our 1st list of 20 Most Influential People in FX - a list that we will be sure to update as conditions change. We hope you find it useful and as always invite any comments to be sent to bschlossberg@fxcm.com. The Americans Alan Greenspan Ben Bernake John Snow Janet Yellen William Poole Jack Guynn The Europeans Jean-Claude Trichet Otto Ossing Hans Eichel Herve Geymard The Japanese Toshihiko Fukui Sadakazu Tanigaki Hiroshi Watanabe The British Mervyn King Gordon Brown The Swiss Jean-Pierre Roth Philipp Hildebrand Commodity Currencies David Dodge - Canada Ian Macfarlane - Australia Alan Bollard - New Zealand The Americans Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve As the principal monetary policy official for the world's reserve currency Alan Greenspan is viewed as the most powerful man not only in FX but all financial markets. Fiscally conservative yet monetarily accommodative, he has served under four different Presidents in both Republican and Democrat administrations. Originally an advocate for the return to the gold standard, he admitted, during the most recent Humphrey Hawkins testimony, that he no longer held such views. As the Chairman of President Reagan's 1983 Commission on Social Security he was the architect of Social Security reforms which imposed some of the largest one time tax increases on the American workforce but at the same time guaranteed solvency for the program through the year 2052. Yet he never fully supported the policy recommendations of his own work, often questioning the viability of the Social Security program during his tenure. For this, as well as his tepid criticism of the massive Federal deficits incurred over the past 4 years, he has been vilified by critics for the philosophical inconsistency of his positions. Nevertheless, he has managed to navigate the nation through 1987 Stock Market crash, the 1991 post-Gulf War recession, the collapse of LTCM in 1998, the year 2000 burst of the NASDAQ bubble and 9/11 with only minimal setbacks for the economy. During his tenure as Chairman, US GDP increased in 16 out of 17 years - one of the smoothest periods of economic growth in US history. Ironically enough, the Chairman who is an ardent believer in laissez-faire capitalism and is a fan of Ayn Rand, had never hesitated to use the full power of government printing press at his disposal to quickly generate liquidity and re-establish confidence in times of market crisis. Perhaps this steak of steely pragmatism has been the key to his success. The Chairman is scheduled to step down January 31st 2006. In the meantime he reaffirmed his determination to increase the Fed funds rate to a more neutral level assuring that the dollar's carry spread differential against the euro and the yen will continue to expand. and more...