Nick Giannatasio on Blogger: 2020

A resident of New York, Nicholas “Nick” Giannatasio is a principal at The Eastern Group, a privately managed investment group focused on emerging markets. Away from his career in finance, Nick Giannatasio is a football coach at Moore Catholic High School. He has held the role since 2015.

Under Mr. Giannatasio’s leadership, the football team went 8-2 in 2016 and won the New York Catholic High School Football League (NYCHSFL) Class A Championship, and won the NYCHSFL Class AA2 Championship in 2019. For his efforts, he was named New York Giants High School Football Coach of the Week in late 2018.

The Giants’ High School Football Coach of the Week award is sponsored by Gatorade. It is given to a head coach who demonstrates a commitment to promoting youth football by effective coaching and motivating his team to succeed.

Mr. Giannatasio was publicly honored during a Giants’ games versus the New Orleans Saints in 2018. Additionally, the Giants donated football equipment to his high school team and Gatorade donated $2,000 to the school’s football program.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Understanding How Currency Arbitrage Works

An experienced investment professional and talented high school football coach, Nicholas "Nick" Giannatasio works as both principal and managing director of The Eastern Group, primarily working in emerging markets in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. In these roles, Nick Giannatasio focuses on real estate and currency arbitrage.

Arbitrage is a common investment strategy designed to take advantage of the inefficiencies in the market. The most common implementation of this strategy is in currency trading, where investors purchase and sell currency on foreign markets. Currencies are extremely liquid, and their value often fluctuates from day to day. In the past, there were enough inefficiencies and price discrepancies between different banks or markets that regular investors were able to take advantage of that, buying and selling currency through different exchanges or banks.

Today, arbitrage is not something the average investor can take advantage of. Due to the high flow of information, the value of the currency can change quickly and any discrepancies in price might only be present for a few seconds. It takes highly sophisticated computer software to trade quickly enough to make a profit.

Currency arbitrage is often described by investors as risk-free because buying and selling currency does not bet on the future performance of assets (like with stocks and bonds). However, there is always some amount of risk involved. In the case of currency arbitrage, that often involves transaction fees, issues with foreign taxes, and slippage (or the execution of a trade at a price different than what you expected, due to swiftly changing rates).