Zim pairs are one of hundreds (if not thousands) of different currency pairs. In trading value/volume there are at the bottom. Nothing wrong with that ... if that is all you can handle. Like trading penny stocks. Someone has to do it. Good luck - have at it. I'll stick with Euro, Pound, Yen, Swissie, Loonie, Aussie, and Kiwi pairs
BTW unless someone knows different the spot price for ZWDUSD has changed in like 10 years? Ummmm kinda makes it hard to trade no?
I think you're missing the point. We are not discussing Zimbabwe or Venezuela because we intend to trade their currencies, but rather because these countries present an interesting "model" for potential economic developments. That's because they have adopted USD and ZAR as the medium of exchange, if I recall in 2009. Even though they have switched to hard currencies as an exchange medium, they are still playing the fractional reserve banking game so the proxy for the exchange rate is something like "balance of US dollars at local banks vs cash".
I understand but to what end? Other than worldly academic knowledge. All well and good but if you are a trader shouldn't you be interested in more practical knowledge?
Obviously, if you have to choose between practical knowledge and general education, you should pick the former. However, general knowledge helps to develop creativity and flexible thought process which are very valuable in the long run. In an ideal world, a good trader should be hungry for all knowledge, from statistics (very applicable) to ancient history (far less applicable). You just never know what exactly might lead you to interesting ideas.
There's no "should" when it comes to knowledge. I personally would be bored practically to suicide if I could only be interested in purely practical knowledge that I could apply now. I'd also be far worse at everything I do including trading. I would say especially in trading that a broad experience and knowledge base can provide insight to see an edge that others don't. Purely practical knowledge on the other hand is a necessary but not sufficient condition to allow a person to trade. The human brain is generally inferior to today's computers when it comes to performing practical tasks. What it is spectacularly good at and what we haven't been able to replicate yet is the ability to synthesize vast amounts of data and come up with novel discoveries from that. My philosophy is to feed that synthesis engine as much data as I can from as many different places as I can, and if I'm interested in something it's that much easier to absorb a lot about it. And that even includes TMZ, although my lack of interest in that makes my visits there few and far between!
Ok but I've learned over the years there is only some much time in a day/week/month/year/life - the last one especially - to try to make the best use of it where it affects the bottom line. I'll never stop learning, hopefully, and do occasionally stray down a rabbit-hole or two before i catch myself but the times of sitting in front of a screen 16 hours a day are over. Everything is connected in the global economy but the only country on the African continent that matters, besides the Arab oil producing ones and Nigeria, is South Africa. All the rest could financially collapse tomorrow and the world wouldn't blink. Don't get me wrong it would be painful to those involved but nothing to me and my trading. Plain and simple.