Image source: Pixabay

The U.S. Dollar’s tumble has been capturing the headlines as of late, and we even have magazine covers showcasing its drop.

It’s been hit especially hard against the Euro, and if you consider the Dollar Index, the Euro has the greatest weighting (57.6%).

I’m going to be spending several weeks in Europe this summer, and fortunately, I was able to convert my Dollars to Euros way back around the 1.09 mark in the exchange rate.

But this did get me thinking about some of my earliest exposure to international finance at a very young age. It’s as if I was being set up to become a trader in the future, without even realizing it… (JUMP)

Once Upon a Time, Before the Euro

I grew up here in southeast Michigan, not far from the Canadian border. There was an Italian cultural club my family used to frequent over in Windsor called the “Ciociaro Club”. 

Every couple of months, we would visit the club for a traditional Italian dinner, and I remember after crossing the Ambassador Bridge, there was a currency exchange booth where we would convert our U.S. Dollars to Canadian Dollars for some evening spending money.

I remember being intrigued with how we would get more Canadian Dollars in exchange for our U.S. Dollars, although at the time, I had no idea why.

In the summer, we would head to Europe. Back in the Italian Lira days, my 5 year-old self thought I was a big shot after seeing my dollar bills’ value multiplied ten-fold. 

Again, I didn’t understand why at the time, and I didn’t really pay much attention to exchange rates until after the Global Financial Crisis hit back in 2008-2009.

I was still in school at the time, but several years before, the Eurozone had moved over to the Euro. Vacations became more expensive, and as a kid, being told “no” to buy things I had grown accustomed to buying whenever was certainly annoying.

Around that time, the Fed launched QE (I had no idea that was even going on when it first started), and the Dollar dumped hard for a couple years. 

By then, I was a working teenager and most of the money I spent was from the summer jobs I worked before heading overseas. I quickly realized that the days were gone where my precious greenbacks could buy double or triple what they did for similar goods in Italy. 

My ignorance on the matter continued until I started my journey in financial markets in May 2012. The financial crisis was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and I started putting together various pieces of the puzzle.

I bought my first stocks in May 2012. They were Metro PCS (doesn’t exist anymore) and Sony. I made around 30% on my trades over the course of that summer, and thought that trading was easy-money.

Rest assured, I was humbled by the market in the years that followed.

But it is crazy to sit back and think that I’m beginning my 14th year in markets next month.

If I could go back and tell myself something in my early trading days, it would be to stop trading like there is no tomorrow. The market has lasted through world wars, economic collapses, and global pandemics.

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