FX Strategist

Greg Gibbs

Greg has had a long career in foreign exchange, beginning at the Reserve Bank of Australia in 1989.  He was the first economics graduate at the Bank to be assigned to the foreign exchange dealing desk. Greg learnt from highly respected stewards of policy and market development at the Bank.  He played a leading role in establishing the Bank’s approach to asset and currency management of its international reserves, and managed the Bank's Japanese bond portfolio for a year before joining the private sector in 1995.

In October 2015, Greg launched his own FX research company, Amplifying Global FX Capital, after completing duties at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Singapore where he was the Head of Asia Pacific Markets Strategy since February 2014.  His flagship  report (AmpGFX) is available here on SmartKarma.

He has maintained a trading track record since March 2013. The results are very good over this period. There have been significant macro developments that suit his approach to markets. He is now managing his own capital and will often have positions in the markets that he is writing about in his AmpGFX report.

For a detailed biography and trading performance analysis head to the ampGFXcapital.com website.

Fundamental analysis of topical themes in FX

Amplifying Global FX Capital

Amplifying Global FX Capital was founded in 2015 and is fully owned by Greg Gibbs. It is a registered company both in Australia and Colorado, USA and is a licensed in Australia to provide financial services.

We are producing a regular trading view orientated macroeconomic analysis of topical themes in global financial markets, with a particular focus on foreign exchange. We invite you to view an “executive summary” of these reports in “AmpGFX Reports” under our “Research” menu.

These reports are drawn from the analysis of Greg Gibbs and inform the capital management he undertakes on behalf of the company. The trading performance is posted periodically on our website. We aim to build our company into both a research and capital management business. We are currently in the planning phase for managing capital for wholesale customers.

Greg Gibbs has spent his working life of more than 26 years in financial markets, beginning in 1989 at the Reserve Bank of Australia, after completing a Bachelor of Economics Degree (Honours) at the Australian National University. He has been a CFA Charterholder since 2005. He has worked in Sydney, Singapore, New York and London for major global banks and presented on foreign exchange markets to major financial institutions and companies around the world, and maintained a high profile in the financial media.

Before Amplifying Global FX Capital, Greg was the Head of Asia Pacific Market Strategy at the Royal Bank of Scotland based Singapore. He now resides in Breckenridge Colorado.

Macroeconomics

After a volatile start to the year that has involved a significant downward revision to global growth expectations, we try to take stock of the major global market developments to attempt to develop a sense of the prevailing themes in the market.  A key driver of global developments has been the price of oil; it made two almost identical lows on 20 Jan and 11 Feb.  Through this phase of the year, global market uncertainty and volatility was at its highest in some years, sending many in the market looking for risk havens.  In this environment JPY and gold have been strong performers.The second phase of the fall in oil prices from 29-Jan to 11-Feb was far more depressing for developed market assets.  A key contributing factor was a deep fall in financial equites.  In hindsight, we can see now that emerging market equities, commodity producer equites, including energy stocks, and many emerging market currencies were proving quite resilient during this second phase of intense risk aversion, many of them strengthening through this period.After a double bottom the market appears more confident that the most recent rise in oil prices from the 11-Feb low is sustainable. The stronger oil price has reinforced the rebound in EM and commodity producer assets that were already appearing more inclined to recover from the earlier low in oil prices. The persistent weakness in the USD against risk havens (JPY, EUR and Gold) is harder to explain during the solid rebound in global asset prices in recent weeks and recovery in US yields, amidst higher US inflation and strong US employment data.  But the market has lost confidence and visibility on the outlook for monetary policy in Japan and Europe, fears they are running out of policy options, and appears more assured that Fed policy will adopt a more growth friendly demeanor.  We doubt broad-USD weakness will persist but the onus appears to be on the US data to confirm it is on a sustainable growth path and generating higher inflation.

After a volatile start to the year that has involved a significant downward revision to global growth expectations, we try to take stock of the major global market developments to attempt to develop a sense of the prevailing themes in the market.  A key driver of global developments has been the price of oil; it made two almost identical lows on 20 Jan and 11 Feb.  Through this phase of the year, global market uncertainty and volatility was at its highest in some years, sending many in the market looking for risk havens.  In this environment JPY and gold have been strong performers.The second phase of the fall in oil prices from 29-Jan to 11-Feb was far more depressing for developed market assets.  A key contributing factor was a deep fall in financial equites.  In hindsight, we can see now that emerging market equities, commodity producer equites, including energy stocks, and many emerging market currencies were proving quite resilient during this second phase of intense risk aversion, many of them strengthening through this period.After a double bottom the market appears more confident that the most recent rise in oil prices from the 11-Feb low is sustainable. The stronger oil price has reinforced the rebound in EM and commodity producer assets that were already appearing more inclined to recover from the earlier low in oil prices. The persistent weakness in the USD against risk havens (JPY, EUR and Gold) is harder to explain during the solid rebound in global asset prices in recent weeks and recovery in US yields, amidst higher US inflation and strong US employment data.  But the market has lost confidence and visibility on the outlook for monetary policy in Japan and Europe, fears they are running out of policy options, and appears more assured that Fed policy will adopt a more growth friendly demeanor.  We doubt broad-USD weakness will persist but the onus appears to be on the US data to confirm it is on a sustainable growth path and generating higher inflation.

Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO US)

Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Union (600010 CH)

AmpGFX - Taking Stock on a Confusing Start to the Year