CEO Spotlight: UK Trader, Samuel Leach, develops trading algorithm in 7 figure deal

Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability is developing at an extraordinary pace in areas from Toasters to City Management, however, within the historically stuffy world of High Finance, it is tearing through like a tornado.

Investors within every sector and level of experience and client base are clamouring to acquire the swiftest, most powerful operating algorithms, as well as AI-based technologies and whilst the likes of JP Morgan and Citi are developing solutions in-house, most are turning to algorithm programmers for the answer. The march of this Fintech in the finance sector is being hampered for the want of professionals with the dual expertise of Trading and Algorithm development.

Samuel Leach, of London based Samuel & Co Trading which specialises in Foreign Exchange (FX) and Equities and algorithm trading, has just completed a 7 figure contract to develop a high-performance trading algorithm for a European investment firm, sources close to the deal have revealed. Leach is understood to be providing ongoing support to evolve the algorithm to deliver on future performance goals for the unidentified multi-national outfit.

The release of this news follows quickly from the recent comments of ARK’s Cathie Wood that the market cap on AI in the enterprise software sectors was not $30 trillion as previously predicted but $80 trillion over the next 10 years.

For another measure, data suggests that in the 2000s, algorithmic trading accounted for around 15 per cent of the US’s stock market volume. It now accounts for 80 per cent of that same market. Some commentators are beginning to point to 90 per cent share on some exchanges in the not too distant future.

It is the very fundamentals of Algo trading that make its success so likely. Where the human response to market stimuli, including gambling and greed, fear, recklessness is the greatest weaknesses to an investment strategy, the removal of these immediately offers the possibility of greater success. Meanwhile, algorithms are able to operate at higher frequencies and offer greater accuracy at entry and exit points, as well as processing infinitely higher volumes of data from across the matrix of the global financial system. At the current time, human reason and instinct have an apparent ace up their sleeve in terms of managing anomalous data points and the impact they may have on one-off financial events, however, it is arguable only a matter of time for Fintech to catch up and overtake.

Samuel started non-emotion-driven turnkey investment and algorithm development in 2013 whilst still at university and at the same time working for one of the UK’s leading private banks. After founding Samuel & Co Trading his two principle algorithms operated on the USD: GBP exchange rates, and on the Dow Jones, the latter offering 20% in March 2020 alone as it traded through the US COVID-19 Financial Crash. Leach has now managed to scale up the offering and is now operating in an altogether different league.

Leach is famed for his YouTube and Instagram profiles, where his algorithm outputs were initially shared. His increasing presence in the financial and social media worlds secured for him the boasting rights of 7th Top Fintech Disruptor in the UK and one of Yahoo Finance’s Top Traders To Follow in 2020.

Given the growth and wealth development capabilities arising from ‘Algo’ trading and the related AI fields, this is an area to monitor both for now and further into the future. As for Samuel, at only age 30, there is no way of telling the heights his career will yet reach!