Replacing Emotion With Systematic Precision
Blackworks Capital is where systematic discipline meets founder conviction — built to protect, and backed by capital we invest alongside yours.
Our Principles
What Defines Blackworks Capital
Blackworks Capital started as a way to run the Founder's own capital. The framework and strategies were designed, tested and invested with our own capital before the Fund accepted a dollar from anyone else.
What it was built for has not changed: protect capital first, and grow it deliberately. The firm maintains three key principles:
Systematic Discipline
When strategy conditions are triggered, the algorithm sells — without hesitation, without committee approval, without negotiation. Every entry, exit, and hedge is governed by backtested, rules-based logic that executes free from human emotion.
Radical Transparency
Every month, investors receive a letter explaining exactly which models fired, which strategies engaged, and why. When the system sits out a rally because signals don't confirm, we say so — and explain the logic. You speak directly with the Founder and Fund Manager, not a sales desk. Transparency is not a reporting feature. It is how we operate.
Partnership Alignment
The Founder's capital is invested in the Fund. Same risk exposure, same drawdowns as every partner. Every loss an investor faces, the Founder faces alongside them. Alignment is not a talking point — it is a structural commitment built into the Fund from day one.
Our Leadership
Rogan McGillis
Founder & Fund Manager
Rogan McGillis founded Blackworks Capital on the conviction that investment decisions belong in rules written in advance, not in discretion exercised under pressure. He designed the Five Forces framework that drives the BWC Founders Fund, and ran similar strategies on his own money before the fund launched in March 2025.
Before Blackworks, he co-founded ARB Midstream, a private-equity-backed midstream energy company serving crude oil markets across North America, and was its first employee. He spent ten years as its Chief Financial Officer and a board member, raising equity and debt from institutional investors and lenders and answering their diligence; audit, tax and treasury reported to him, and he established the risk management policy for its crude marketing and trading business. Earlier, he was VP Finance at NGL Energy Partners.
He set the fund up the way a CFO would: an independent administrator calculates its NAV, outside firms audit it every year, and his own capital is invested in the fund alongside every partner, on the same terms.
Our Investment Framework
The Five Forces Driving Market Returns
Before the BWC Founders Fund accepted a single dollar of outside capital, the Founder built and invested the portfolio using his own. The framework behind it was designed from the conviction that no single force explains market behavior — and that a truly systematic portfolio must integrate multiple independent forces into one unified, rules-based decision engine. These five forces guide every allocation, every hedge, and every risk decision inside the Fund. Three factors express those forces in the Fund's positioning: momentum, mean reversion and cross-asset correlation.
The Macroeconomic Imperative
Systematic analysis of macroeconomic data — interest rates, inflation, employment, and monetary policy signals — to identify the prevailing economic regime and its implications for asset allocation.
Technical Price Action
Quantitative measurement of price trends, momentum, and mean reversion signals across multiple timeframes. Price action remains the most direct expression of aggregate market sentiment.
Derivatives & Market Structure
Analysis of options flow, positioning data, and structural market mechanics — the invisible forces that create predictable pressure points in price action through gamma exposure and dealer hedging.
Fundamental Valuations
Systematic evaluation of earnings, revenue growth, balance sheet quality, and valuation metrics — providing the fundamental anchor that validates or challenges signals from other forces.
Sentiment & Behavioral Extremes
Quantification of fear, greed, and crowd behavior through sentiment indicators, positioning extremes, and volatility metrics — identifying the behavioral dislocations.
Our Framework
A Systematic Framework Built on Five Market Forces
Our Five Forces framework synthesizes five distinct market forces into a unified, rules-based investment process. Each force provides an independent signal; together, they form a comprehensive view of market dynamics that no single force can achieve alone.
This systematic approach replaces subjective judgment with objective, quantitative analysis — identifying statistically validated opportunities with disciplined precision.