Gene Frieda, a global strategist at PIMCO, is a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics

Thirty years ago, on 16 September 1992, currency speculators forced the UK government to abandon the commitment of pound sterling to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In the days that followed ‘Black Wednesday’, sterling subsequently lost 15% of its value. By early 1993, it had lost almost a third of its value.