Anyone who travels abroad frequently has felt the impact of currency fluctuations. The price of your favorite hotel or restaurant can change from one trip to the next simply because of exchange rates. Currency shifts also affect investments outside your home market. Investing in a foreign stock, for example, means being exposed to the underlying currency as well as the stock itself. In the first half of 2025, the US dollar depreciated by as much as 12% against other major currencies, adding to returns of non-US investments. In periods of dollar appreciation, the reverse has been true.