Periods of currency volatility are good times for financial pundits to float new views. But when central banks are being blamed for the plight of the dollar, as some market commentators have suggested, it is time to set the record straight.

Those who blame central banks for the dollar fall point to the IMF’s Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves data, which shows that the dollar share in global reserves fell from 71.5 per cent in 2001 to 64.8 per cent in the middle of this year, while the share of the euro rose from 19.2 per cent to 25.6 per cent.