Epilogue

Demetri Papacostas and Francesco Tonin

We have come to the end of our journey, moving from the very simple trades that exchange one currency for another to the TARN, which is sophisticated enough to take up many pages to explain and many more to understand. This is where a trade ceases to be a trade and becomes a riddle.

The book you have just finished could have been two different books – a technical book with all the quantitative FX details, or a book of anecdotes, greed, suffering, luck, tears and laughter. We’ve tried to give you the most relevant aspects of both. The story of foreign exchange is not a story of formulas, instruments and rules, but instead one of surprising events that impact almost everyone – from the average global citizen looking to go on vacation in a different country, to the huge corporation, to the banker, to governments and to international institutions. Very few financial instruments have such a universal and direct impact. We’ve approached the mathematics and technical details with the respect they deserve, but always with an eye to democratising the concepts and, where possible, the numbers. To this end, we have discussed every important concept from a few different perspectives