In this episode of Behind the Ticker, host Brad Roth of Thor Funds sits down with Chris Getter, CFA, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Simplify, whose career has been almost entirely in emerging markets, sovereigns, and currencies. Getter started out in U.S. high yield at Fidelity in the mid-’90s but got pulled toward the EM desk next door, which was swamped navigating a variety of currency crises. From there he spent a decade at PIMCO, had a stint at Lazard, retired briefly before finally landing at Simplify. Simplify exists because of the 2019 SEC rule change that opened up the ETF wrapper to derivatives and other institutional tools, according to Getter. This let the firm bring strategies that were once reserved for big institutions to everyday investors.
The star of the conversation is the Simplify Currency Strategy ETF (FOXY), an actively managed fund that launched in February 2025. Getter makes the case that currencies are the biggest, most liquid market in the world, yet most investors only touch them indirectly through foreign stocks or bonds, and the mechanics (inverse quoting, forward contracts you can’t buy in a brokerage account, etc.) scare a lot of people away. FOXY’s main engine is carry, which entails earning an interest-rate gap: go long a high-yielding currency like the Brazilian real, fund it by shorting a low-yielder like the Swiss franc, and pocket the difference. Because carry trades are notorious for blowing up suddenly, the fund pairs eight emerging-market carry positions with a G10 sleeve that runs on yield momentum and acts as a volatility cushion, shifting more weight into G10 when implied volatility in EM starts flashing warnings. Importantly, the whole thing is dollar neutral, so it isn’t trying to call where the dollar is headed, and the idle cash sits in T-bills, which serves as collateral and helps fund the monthly distribution.
As for how it’s actually played out, FOXY’s first year got an early stress test from the tariff shock, when the fund leaned defensive, took a drawdown, and then bounced back quickly as trade tensions eased and it moved back into a risk-seeking stance. Its correlation to a 60/40 portfolio has been around 0.4 since launch, and generally under 0.2 (sometimes under 0.1) to other alternatives, which is exactly what you want in a diversifying sleeve. Getter acknowledges the macro backdrop is getting messier, with tariffs, immigration limits, oil spikes, and rising rates all making currencies harder to model, but he sees that added dispersion as an opportunity too. He wraps up by explaining how FOXY slots into Simplify’s broader alternatives lineup alongside managed futures and private credit without overlapping, and hints that more alternative strategies are on the way.
