The IMF, or International Monetary Fund, was established after World War II in December 1946. Its goals included promoting free trade, stabilizing exchange rates, and overseeing international monetary policy. With the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973, the main focus of IMF shifted away from maintaining an international system of fixed exchange rates towards providing monetary/fiscal policy advice and loans to countries undergoing currency crisis.

Recently, loans from the IMF have been almost exclusively directed towards developing countries and emerging markets facing balance of payments difficulties - in other words an inability to meet their net international payments. The loans are usually short-term and designed to prevent an immediate currency collapse by boosting foreign exchange reserves. In order to receive IMF loans, recipients typically must agree to enact IMF-approved economic reform, usually in the form of cuts to domestic spending and increases in net exports. As a result, IMF activity generally encourages currency devaluation, which some critics have condemned as inflationary.

Results in developing countries receiving IMF loans have generally been mixed. For example, Argentina, despite following IMF policy proposals, suffered a catastrophic debt crisis in 2001 which caused the Argentinean peso to depreciate heavily. Other South American nations, such as Uruguay and Brazil, also faced debt crisis despite heavy IMF involvement. As such, the long-term impact of IMF involvement on a country's currency and economy remains difficult to predict.

For fundamental traders, the IMF serves as an excellent source for free economic statistics, research and insight.