Silver has long been valued as a precious metal, and it is used to make ornaments, jewelry, high-value tableware, utensils (hence the termsilverware), and currency coins. Today, silver metal is also used in electrical contacts and conductors, in mirrors and in catalysis of chemical reactions. Its compounds are used in photographic film and dilute silver nitrate solutions and other silver compounds are used asdisinfectants and microbiocides. While many medical antimicrobial uses of silver have been supplanted by antibiotics, further research into clinical potential continues.

On March 2011 Silver reached a price of about $35 USD per troy ounce, silver is about 1/40th the price of gold. The ratio has varied from 1/15 to 1/100 in the past 100 years.

In 1980, the silver price rose to a peak for modern times of US$49.45 per troy ounce (T.O.) due to market manipulation of Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt. Some time after Silver Thursday the price was back to $10 per troy ounce. By December 2001 the price had dropped to US$4.15/T.O., and in May 2006 it had risen back as high as US$15.21/T.O. In March 2008, silver reached US$21.34/T.O. In early March 2011, silver reached a new 31-year-high of $36 a Troy Ounce.

In earlier times silver has commanded much higher prices. In the early 15th century, the price of silver is estimated to have surpassed $800 per ounce, based on 1998 dollars.^[51] The discovery of massive silver deposits in the New World during the succeeding centuries has caused the price to diminish greatly.

The price of silver is important in Judaic Law. The lowest fiscal amount that a Jewish court, or Beth Din, can convene to adjudicate a case over is a shova pruta (value of a Babylonianpruta coin). This is fixed at 1/8 of a gram of pure, unrefined silver, at market price.

The top three oil producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United States. About 80% of the world’s readily accessible reserves are located in the Middle East, with 62.5% coming from the Arab 5: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait. A large portion of the world’s total oil exists as unconventional sources, such as bitumen in Canada and Venezuela and oil shale. While significant volumes of oil are extracted from oil sands, particularly in Canada, logistical and technical hurdles remain, as oil extraction requires large amounts of heat and water, making its net energy content quite low relative to conventional crude oil. Thus, Canada’s oil sands are not expected to provide more than a few million barrels per day in the foreseeable future.

After the collapse of the OPEC-administered pricing system in 1985, and a short lived experiment with netback pricing, oil-exporting countries adopted a market-linked pricing mechanism. First adopted by PEMEX in 1986, market-linked pricing was widely accepted, and by 1988 became and still is the main method for pricing crude oil in international trade. The current reference or pricing markers are Brent, WTI, and Dubai/Oman.

The yen lost most of its value during and after World War II. After a period of instability, in 1949, the value of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per US$1 through a United States plan, which was part of the Bretton Woods System, to stabilize prices in the Japanese economy. That exchange rate was maintained until 1971, when the United States abandoned the gold standard, which had been a key element of the Bretton Woods System, and imposed a 10 percent surcharge on imports, setting in motion changes that eventually led to floating exchange rates in 1973.

It is normally written with the dollar sign $, or NZ$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. In the context of currency trading, it is often informally called the “Kiwi”; since kiwi are commonly associated with New Zealand and the $1 coin depicts a kiwi. It is one of the 10 most-traded currencies in the world.

The NZ$ was initially pegged to the US dollar at US$1.39 = NZ$1. This rate changed on 21 November of the same year to US$1.12 = NZ$1 after the devaluation of the British pound although New Zealand devalued more than the UK.

In 1971 the US devalued its dollar relative to gold, leading New Zealand on 23 December to peg its dollar at US$1.216 with a 4.5% fluctuation range, keeping the same gold value. From 9 July 1973 to 4 March 1985 the dollar’s value was determined from a trade-weighted basket of currencies.

The NZD was floated on 4 March 1985 at the initial rate of US$0.4444. Since then the dollar’s value has been determined by the financial markets, and has been in the range of about US$0.39 to 0.82.

The dollar’s post-float minimum average daily value was US$0.3922 on 22 November 2000, and it set a post-float maximum on 27 February 2008 of US$0.8213. Much of this medium-term variation in the exchange rate has been attributed to differences in interest rates.

The New Zealand dollar’s value is often strongly affected by currency trading, and is among the 10 most-traded currencies.

On 11 June 2007 the Reserve Bank sold an unknown amount of New Zealand dollars in an attempt to drive down its value. This is the first intervention in the markets by the Bank since the float in 1985.

Two suspected interventions followed, but they were not as successful as the first: the first appeared to be initially effective, with the dollar dropping to approximately US$0.7490 from near US$0.7620. However, within little more than a month it had risen to new post-float highs, reaching US$0.8103 on 23 July 2007.

After reaching its post-float record high in early 2008, the value of the NZD plummeted throughout much of the 2nd half of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 as a response to the global economic downturn and flight by investors away from ‘riskier’ currencies such as the NZD. The NZD bottomed out at approximately US$0.50 on 6 March 2009. However, it rebounded strongly as the year progressed, reaching the US$0.75 range by November 2009.

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling. The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar (alongside the Gibraltar pound), the Falkland Islands (alongside the Falkland Islands pound) and Saint Helena and Ascension (alongside the Saint Helena pound). The Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Saint Helena pounds are separate currencies, pegged at parity to the pound sterling.

Sterling is the fourth most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen. Together with those three currencies it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF Special Drawing Rights, with a 11.3% weighting as of 2011. Sterling is also the third most held reserve currency in global reserves.

A total of 165,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, as of 2009. This is roughly equivalent to 5.3 billion troy ounces or, in terms of volume, about 8,500 m³, or a cube 20.4 m on a side. The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry.

Gold has many uses in dentistry, electronics and other fields. It is useful because it is resistant to corrosion and is an excellent conductor of electricity.

Like other precious metals, gold is measured by troy weight and by grams. When it is alloyed with other metals the term carat or karat is used to indicate the purity of gold present, with 24 carats being pure gold and lower ratings proportionally less. The purity of a gold bar or coin can also be expressed as a decimal figure ranging from 0 to 1, known as the millesimal fineness, such as 0.995 being very pure.

The price of gold is determined through trading in the gold and derivatives markets, but a procedure known as the Gold Fixing in London, originating in September 1919, provides a daily benchmark price to the industry. The afternoon fixing was introduced in 1968 to provide a price when US markets are open.

Historically gold coinage was widely used as currency; when paper money was introduced, it typically was a receipt redeemable for gold coin or bullion. In a monetary system known as the gold standard, a certain weight of gold was given the name of a unit of currency. For a long period, the United States government set the value of the US dollar so that one troy ounce was equal to $20.67 ($664.56/kg), but in 1934 the dollar was devalued to $35.00 per troy ounce ($1125.27/kg). By 1961, it was becoming hard to maintain this price, and a pool of US and European banks agreed to manipulate the market to prevent further currency devaluation against increased gold demand.

On March 17, 1968, economic circumstances caused the collapse of the gold pool, and a two-tiered pricing scheme was established whereby gold was still used to settle international accounts at the old $35.00 per troy ounce ($1.13/g) but the price of gold on the private market was allowed to fluctuate; this two-tiered pricing system was abandoned in 1975 when the price of gold was left to find its free-market level. Central banks still hold historical gold reserves as a store of value although the level has generally been declining. The largest gold depository in the world is that of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which holds about 3% of the gold ever mined, as does the similarly laden U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox.

In 2005 the World Gold Council estimated total global gold supply to be 3,859 tonnes and demand to be 3,754 tonnes, giving a surplus of 105 tonnes.

Since 1968 the price of gold has ranged widely, from a high of $850/oz ($27,300/kg) on January 21, 1980, to a low of $252.90/oz ($8,131/kg) on June 21, 1999 (London Gold Fixing). The period from 1999 to 2001 marked the “Brown Bottom” after a 20-year bear market. Prices increased rapidly from 1991, but the 1980 high was not exceeded until January 3, 2008 when a new maximum of $865.35 per troy ounce was set (a.m. London Gold Fixing). Another record price was set on March 17, 2008 at $1023.50/oz ($32,900/kg) (am. London Gold Fixing). In late 2009, gold markets experienced renewed momentum upwards due to increased demand and a weakening US dollar. On December 2, 2009, Gold passed the important barrier of US$1200 per ounce to close at $1215. Gold further rallied hitting new highs in May 2010 after the European Union debt crisis prompted further purchase of gold as a safe asset. On March 1, 2011, gold hit a new all-time high of $1432.57, based on investor concerns regarding ongoing unrest in North Africa as well as in the Middle East.

Since April 2001 the gold price has more than tripled in value against the US dollar, prompting speculation that this long secular bear market has ended and a bull market has returned.

The euro is the second largest reserve currency as well as the second most traded currency in the world after the U.S. dollar. As of June 2010, with more than €800 billion in circulation, the euro has the highest combined value of banknotes and coins in circulation in the world, having surpassed the U.S. dollar. Based on IMF estimates of 2008 GDP and purchasing power parity among the various currencies, the eurozone is the second largest economy in the world.

The name euro was officially adopted on 16 December 1995. The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999, replacing the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1. Euro coins and banknotes entered circulation on 1 January 2002.

The Australian dollar is currently the fifth-most-traded currency in the world foreign exchange markets behind the US dollar, the euro, the yen and the pound sterling. The Australian dollar is popular with currency traders, because of the comparatively high interest rates in Australia, the relative freedom of the foreign exchange market from government intervention, the general stability of Australia’s economy nd political system, and the prevailing view that the Australian dollar offers diversification benefits in a portfolio containing the major world currencies, especially because of its greater exposure to Asian economies and the commodities cycle. Australians sometimes refer to the Australian Dollar by the slang term “buck”.

The Swiss franc is the only version of the franc still issued in Europe. The smaller denomination, a hundredth of a franc, is a Rappen Rp.) in German, centime (c.) in French, centesimo (ct.) in Italian, and rap (rp.) in Romansh. The ISO code of the currency used by banks and financial institutions is CHF, although “Fr.” is used by most businesses and advertisers; some use SFr. the Latinate “CH” stands for Confoederatio Helvetica.

Given its quadrilingual populace, coins are language-neutral. Only Latin, as the last commonly spoken language on the territory of Switzerland, is used for inscriptions.

A number of central banks (and commercial banks) keep Canadian dollars as a reserve currency. The Canadian dollar is considered to be a benchmark currency.

In the economy of the Americas the Canadian dollar plays a similar role to that which the Australian Dollar (AUD) does in the Asia-Pacific region. The Canadian dollar (as a regional reserve currency for banking) has been an important part of the British, French and Dutch Caribbean state’s economies and finance systems since the 1950s. The Canadian dollar is held by many central banks in Central America and South America as well. The holding of the Canadian dollar in Latin America is done so because of each nation’s nationally important issues of remittances and international trade.

By observing how the Canadian dollar behaves against the U.S. dollar, foreign exchange economists can indirectly observe internal behaviors and patterns in the US economy that could not be seen by direct observation. The Canadian dollar has only fully evolved into a global reserve currency since the 1970s when it was floated against all other world currencies. Some economists have attributed the rise of importance of the Canadian dollar to the long term effects of the Nixon Shock that effectively ended the Bretton Woods system of global finance.

The Canadian dollar is used as a reserve currency around the world and is currently ranked 6th in value held as reserves