ABSTRACT
The microcomputer and the personal computer revolution accelerated the trend toward completely electronic trading by making it attractive for all traders to interact with one another on a continuous basis. Once a computer-mediated trading infrastructure is in place, neither the marketplace nor society will be the same. Throughout the seventies and early eighties, the nucleus of a computer-mediated trading infrastructure was being created, and a number of companies in several different industries were converging from a variety of directions and strengths. The Bretton Woods Agreement was designed to facilitate and encourage an active international trading system by ensuring that all exchange rates were stable and constant. Foreign currency trading is supposed to lubricate international trade, but perhaps nine out of ten deals are estimated to be speculative, which means that it constitutes a “zero-sum” game. By the mid-eighties, the new computer-mediated trading infrastructures were affecting people, organizations, and global activity.
