Monolith Research
The Team  ·  Vol. 1  ·  2026

The Team.

Monolith Research  ·  London

Monolith Research is an institution of few — its founder designed and built its core strategy book himself, from the data plumbing up; a portfolio manager runs a systematic book of his own alongside it. Statistical arbitrage, macro-regime ensembles, trend systems: the founder’s research is his own. The work is held to the standard of a journal rather than the rhythm of a desk — publish what can be defended, withhold what cannot, and retire what the evidence kills. It does not manage client capital or provide investment advice. What follows is the record, and the people behind it.

United Kingdom Est. 2024 Institution of few
Top 15 IMC Prosperity of 2,200+ teams · global quant comp
~1.64 Funding-grade book 5 uncorrelated sleeves · out-of-sample
39 Strategies graded through a blind out-of-sample gate
3 Open-source repositories the gate · the graveyard · microstructure

Figures are out-of-sample and post-cost unless noted, each reconstructible from a versioned notebook and a dated data snapshot. Designed, built, and validated in-house.

§ 1   Founder Bilal Malik, Founder. Who · What · Now
1. Background

Bilal Malik is the founder of Monolith Research, a UK-based systematic trading research and software company, which he runs from London. He reads Finance at Lancaster University, and treats the company as a serious independent research practice rather than a startup. The work is split between writing the software that ingests data and evaluates ideas, and writing the documentation that records what those ideas did once committed to the market — and, unusually for a firm of any size, the entire strategy book is his own.

2. What he studies

The markets studied are liquid and well-priced: large-cap US equity ETFs, G7 spot FX, and a narrow band of commodity exposures — precious metals and a small number of softs. The research stack is Python-first (pandas, NumPy, a custom backtesting framework), with internal summarisation workflows for journalled research and a broker API used for integration on the live-test side. The toolkit is deep: cointegration testing, Ornstein–Uhlenbeck mean-reversion, walk-forward validation, regime modelling, and the discipline of writing things down before the screen refreshes.

3. Current focus

Currently the focus has shifted from running live books to hardening the discipline around them: the open-source validation gate, the public kill-record, and two live records kept only because they can be defended. The ambition is not small — an institution-grade systematic research firm run by a handful of people — but the method is patient: publish what can be defended, withhold what cannot, and let the record accumulate at its own pace.

“The market, to me, is the closest thing we have to a hive mind. A single price is a live collection of what every participant believes at once — be it fear, greed, conviction, doubt — in a single number. I have always found that mesmerising: that the patterns and trends in price are, in a real sense, the patterns of collective human thought. Algorithmic trading is simply the most honest way I have found to study that hive mind: write the hypothesis down, test it against the record, and let the stats, not the narrative, decide.”

Bilal Malik — on why the markets
§ 2   Portfolio Manager Yusuf Nuriye, Portfolio Manager. Portfolio Management · Systematic Strategies · Risk
1. Background

Yusuf Nuriye is a Portfolio Manager at Monolith Research, where he runs a systematic book of his own. His background sits in Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics through his MORSE degree at Lancaster University, giving him a strong base in probability, optimisation, statistical reasoning, and decision-making under uncertainty. The fit is natural: the work is less about prediction as theatre, and more about building research that can survive noisy data, changing markets, cost, risk, and constraint.

2. Institutional exposure

Yusuf has built institutional market exposure through Susquehanna International Group and Schroders. That gives him a view across different sides of markets: quantitative trading, market-making, probability, and execution on one side; portfolio construction, macro allocation, research process, and institutional risk language on the other. At Schroders, his team placed 2nd overall in a multi-asset investment exercise, analysing rates, inflation, and market cycles.

3. His desk

At Monolith, Yusuf runs his own systematic sleeve — its own research mandate, its own discipline, and a small team around it — held to the same gate the rest of the firm is judged by. The particulars of what he runs stay private; what is public is the standard it is held to. The brief is the firm’s brief, narrowed to a desk: govern the downside before the upside is chased.

Yusuf on LinkedIn
Currently in research Maintaining the open-source validation gate and the public research record, and keeping two defensible live records — a third-party-scored Numerai model and a single intraday edge on a third-party-funded account. The next strategy reaches capital only by clearing the gate. June 2026
§ 3   Correspondence Letters, mostly. Some links. Replies within three working days
  1. 1. Email bilal@monolithresearch.uk
  2. 2. LinkedIn Bilal Malik

Monolith Research does not manage client capital, does not solicit investors, and does not provide investment advice. Correspondence is for research, technology, employment, and collaboration only.