Welcome to "The Letter".

The Trader Behind XAQP: Who I Am, What I Build, and Why I'm Writing This.

I run a systematic trading strategy called XAQP. I work at Darwinex as Head of UK Growth and Business Development. I spent seven years trading discretionary before any of that, and for the last eighteen months I have been building algorithmic strategies more or less obsessively.

That is the short version. This is the longer one, because if you are going to read what I write here every week, you should know who is doing the writing. Oh, and don't forget to hit the Subscribe button below to receive all updates from The Letter. I promise, it will be worth your while.

I'm a guy figuring it out, with eight years of receipts behind me

Let me get the honest framing in early. I am not a hedge fund veteran with twenty years at a multi-strat. I am a trader who has been at this for around eight years, made plenty of mistakes, and is still learning in public. What I am not is someone with no track record telling you how to trade. There is a difference, and the difference is the whole reason I feel comfortable putting words on a page.

The public record is just over a year old. XAQP went live in April 2025. Behind that year sit seven years of discretionary trading from 2018 onwards, a switch to fully systematic at the start of 2025, and a lot of failed strategies that never quite got to a live account. The confidence you might read in these pieces comes from the work.

The confidence you might read in these pieces comes from the work.

What I actually do all day

Three things, roughly, and they all feed each other.

The first is my job at Darwinex. I head up UK growth and business development, which in practice means copywriting, social, partnerships, sales, community, content, deal-finding, and a fair bit of backend work. It pays the bills and it puts me inside the systematic-trading world every single day, which is a quiet advantage most independent traders do not have.

The second is XAQP, the strategy. It is a multi-strategy portfolio trading CFDs across FX majors and yen crosses, indices like the Nasdaq, S&P and DAX, and metals, mostly gold and silver. Breakouts, trend-following, mean reversion, all running together with risk managed at two levels. As of June 2026 it sits at roughly $3.72M in assets under management, a live Sharpe of 3.87, a return of 45.50% since inception before fees, and a maximum drawdown of -5.83%. There are a couple of deals in progress on top of that which I am not going to jinx by detailing.

The third is the building. I research and mine strategies using Claude, Codex and StrategyQuantX, generate candidates through Block Builders, execute on MetaTrader 5, and write my own portfolio-management tooling with AI in the loop. This is the part I would do for free. It is also the part I will write about most.

This is the part I would do for free.

The plates I'm spinning

I have a full-time job. I run a portfolio. I create content. I am developing partnerships and chasing new business leads. And in the cracks between all of that, I am always developing for the next strategy.

I mention the plates not as a humble-brag but because it shapes everything about how I trade and therefore, how I will write to you. A discretionary book sat at one screen does not survive a life like this. A systematic book does. That constraint is not a limitation I work around; it is the thing that pushed me toward the approach I now believe in. More on that philosophy in the weeks to come, because it is the spine of how I think about this work.

Outside the screens, I train MMA, play guitar, and lose at chess more than I would like. I say that because I am a person, not a P&L feed, and the people whose writing I actually read are people first.

Why systematic, and why now for the writing

Seven years of trading by hand taught me my edge. Eighteen months of building taught me how to make that edge reproducible, scalable, and able to run while life keeps moving. I did full-time trading as my sole income once. I would not do it that way again, and the reasons why are worth a whole piece on their own.

The writing exists because I have spent years reading takes on trading from people who have never run real money, and a smaller number of genuinely useful pieces from people who have. I want to add to the second pile. I want to be the resource I was looking for three years ago: someone showing the actual mechanics, the failures, the process, with the receipts to back it up.

I want to be the resource I was looking for three years ago.

What I'll be writing about

Mostly the craft. Strategy design, robustness testing, risk, drawdown, the psychology of running a system through a losing stretch, the mistakes I see and the ones I have made. Some of it will get into the tools I am building with AI. Some of it will be track-record updates, the real numbers, good months and bad. Occasionally I will rant about something in this industry that deserves it.

What I will not do is sell you anything dressed up as education, or hide behind claims I cannot back. I work for a regulated firm and my name is attached to a public track record, so there is a lot riding on me being straight with you. That suits me fine. Being straight is the only version of this I am interested in.

I am still on the journey. The performance has been strong, but strong performance is a thing you have to keep earning, not a trophy you put on a shelf. I am excited to have people along for the ride, watching it play out in real time, the wins and the wobbles both.

That is me. Next, we get into the actual work.