In Europe, the adoption of a single currency put an end to the realignments that had characterized first the “Snake” and then the first two stages of the European Monetary Union. Currency interventions in these economies are now made only in case of excessively rapid and large fluctuations.
In the years from 1981 to 1997 the Federal Reserve intervened 453 times, more than 30 interventions per year on average. In the last 12 years, in contrast, it has intervened only twice, on September 2000, when the euro had reached a record low against the dollar, and on 18 March this year, in the aftermath of the earthquake that hit Japan.