Welcome to Blackworks Capital
Blackworks Capital is a founder-led systematic hedge fund. This page is the quick version of what we do, how we do it, how the fund has performed, and who you would partner with.
I built this fund to manage my own capital first.
As a former CFO, I knew it needed to start with the data, so I built a framework for how and why markets move, and every strategy in it was built around that and tested against decades of data before I would trust it with a dollar of mine, or yours.
My capital is still in the fund, on the same terms as every partner, and I take the meetings myself. The record, net of all fees, is below, and every month of it is published.
The record
Net returns since inception
Systematic discipline translated into measurable results. Net returns since inception (March 2025 - August 2026).
Net monthly returns after all fees and expenses, compounded from inception. S&P 500 Total Return figures are index returns and bear no fees. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
The down months
How a fund behaves when the index falls is the first question worth asking.
A rules-based fund is supposed to do one thing when its readings turn: reduce exposure, without waiting for a person to decide it. That is what these rules do. The down-market-months figure above shows how the fund performed in the months the index fell, against what the index did in the same months.
Take the figure for what it is. A record as short as ours invites skepticism, and I'm not going to argue against that: this is one stretch of one market, and it should be viewed as simply that. It shows how the rules behaved in the falls the index has had; it says nothing about the ones it has not had or will have. The credit the fund can take is narrow and real: in those months the rules reduced exposure, and the result is on the tile. The claim I'll never make is that it will always work the same. It won't, and I can't.
Each month's letter says which strategies drove the result, in the falls as much as the rises. That is the record to read before deciding.
How it decides
Rules, written in advance. Not judgement in the moment.
The Five Forces
Every strategy evaluates five different forces that move the markets: the economy, technical price actions, how the options and futures markets are positioned, company fundamentals, and investor sentiment. Each is read separately, every strategy is built to capture one or more in their design, all are tested rigorously and included based on how they fit the overall portfolio.Bought and sold by rule
When the rules' conditions are met, the program buys or sells on its own. No committee approves it. Every trade can be traced to the rule that made it, and every rule has been tested against decades of data and is continuously monitored.Said out loud, monthly
When the rules put the fund in a position that lost money, or kept it out of a rising market, that month's letter says which strategies did it.
Who you would partner with
A small firm. The manager takes the meeting.
Before Blackworks, I founded and ran ARB Midstream as its CFO and a board member, and was VP Finance at NGL Energy Partners before that. I wrote the rules the fund runs on and ran them on my own capital first; that capital is still in the fund, on identical terms and identical risk exposure to every partner.
You email me, and I reply. There is no sales desk. When you have a question about a month, you ask the person who ran it. I write the letter myself, and I read every reply. A small firm means the person who built the strategy is the person on the call, and the same person answers when a month goes badly.
The monthly letter
What the rules did this month, and every month before it.
Every month: a letter on what the fund returned, what the markets did, what it was holding, and which parts of the strategy accounted for the result; and a one-page factsheet with the month's numbers against the S&P 500 Total Return.
A letter and a factsheet every month since March 2025. The newest letters go only to those who sign up to receive them. Here is a recent one that went out to subscribers, which you can read now without signing up.
Investment in the fund is open only to accredited investors who are also qualified clients. Anyone may read the letter.
Notes on the figures. BWC Founders Fund, LLC. Net monthly returns after the 2% management fee, the 15% incentive allocation and fund expenses, compounded from inception. An individual investor's return depends on subscription date and will differ. S&P 500 Total Return is the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested; it is unmanaged, bears no fees, cannot be invested in directly, and the fund is not managed to track it. Down-market months chains the months in which the index fell; no investor held the fund for only those months. Max drawdown is the largest peak-to-trough fall in month-end net values to date; a later fall can be larger. Sharpe ratio and alpha are calculated from net returns; the methods are on the fund page. The fund holds exchange-traded funds, including leveraged ETFs, and borrows nothing at the fund level; exits follow rules that can act slowly, and no single holding is exited at a set loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investments involve risk, including the possible loss of principal.