Each time a new year dawns, the outlook for global currencymarkets brings new foreign exchange concerns to light amidprojections of looming geopolitical, economic, and social events.For 2019, we can predict many events that we might reasonablyexpect to affect the U.S. dollar, including Brexit, Italy's budget crisis, and the added uncertainty in the European Union (EU) asa result of Angela Merkel's decision not to seek re-election.However, 2019 will undoubtedly also bring unexpected events, whicharen't necessarily related to a specific country or currency andwhich will catch the market by surprise. In addition, some eventsthat we may expect to happen will end up having unexpected impactson currencies.

Corporate treasurers and financial risk managers need to bepreparing now for events in each of these categories. The eventsthemselves may not necessarily be good or bad, but any organizationthat fails to prepare for their effects will likely end up gettinghurt in the fallout.