Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, 1971, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7
The growth rate of the financial sector, while stellar in Q1, will be much slower through the rest of the year, because underlying economic activity will be weak. But in terms of being able to function and operate amid the circuit breaker, the financial sector’s performance has been quite heartening. Foreign Exchange Trading Many of you are from the foreign exchange and treasury business. FX and treasury has been one of the better performing segments in the financial industry. Singapore’s FX market has been resilient – it was able to manage the volatility from the global impact of COVID-19. FX trading volumes in March hit a record high because people were hedging, offloading, and readjusting their investment positions. Activity has now come down to a more normal level. Spreads have widened. This is to be expected in times like these. But spreads have not widened unduly. There is sufficient liquidity in the system. Having a robust infrastructure in place to support swings in trading activities has been important. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  Especially useful was the electronic trading infrastructure for FX, which MAS has been working with industry on for the last few years. We want the pricing and matching engines to be based here, and not have to wait for prices to be matched in London, New York, or Tokyo, because there is still a time lag taken to route orders to these markets. Sometimes there are execution errors with these lags, especially during periods of trading volatility.