The Quarterly Review: A Prop Firm’s Eight-Figure Kick-Off.
Inside AXIA’s prop desks during Q1 2025—and the prompts to rethink your Q2.
Across the AXIA trading desks.
January-March 2025.
London, England, and Limassol, Cyprus.
Then came April. What a quarter!
The clocks changed, the brake broke, and European equity can rise. Or, until Liberation yester-(day) gave you a discount.
Consider, in no order—on-brand for the markets, yes?—what had to be digested over the past quarter: the Trump Tariff saga, the DeepSeek disruption, the European budget reactions to the Russian-Ukraine war—Germany’s debt brake story; Bund’s a-sorry. And… ah-yes. Remember those ECB and BOE cuts? FOMC holding and perhaps others folding. Gilty anyone?
The multi-dimensional market operator must thrive here. VIX goes up, and your P&L must too. You must be positioned this way. Ignoring this inconvenient truth will lead to an unpleasant surprise. No refunds.
But oldboy! Remember, the worst is reserved for Goldilocks strategies thriving on a decent VIX number. But when it goes up too much—liquidity is fleeting, duration is weeping—that special environment separates traders with pure long-tail, convex-style payouts; those that can consolidate performance in a disrupted market. Of course, Q1 2025 was none of the latter—this was March 2020—but a reminder of what volatility can do: blow a hole into the market’s functioning and… reality.
Consider this from the Introduction of Traders of Our Time:
“In a zero-interest-rate policy and highly accommodative world, many asset classes grind up. The world becomes more one-dimensional—“if x, do y” scenarios. Like a controlled scientific experiment, many of the variables were isolated and seemingly snuffed out. In a complex web of many variables, a dynamic world is where the human trader thrives. But if only a handful of variables become relevant, especially if it becomes central bank policy, then much edge and profit is to be had among the server racks of speed and automation until they later start to eat each other, too—but that is another story.”
A one-dimensional world is great for investors and those proclaiming a new regime and world order—passive investing, quant funds. An ‘if x, do y’ world sounds the death throes of the human discretionary trader, as it was from 2013–2019, roughly. The same is true for static, rule, or mandate-bound investors, human, algorithmic, or mechanical traders.
What did the intricate web of Q1 2025 look like for a futures-based (long-short agnostic), multi-product, multi-edge discretionary trading floor? Reimagine A Tale of Two Truths, which describes most action days or weeks of January to March. All action periods differ, but inaction is the same, as described in Sitzfleisch. There was no big event, but an accumulation of ticks, a harvesting of volatility, and a rising tide of P&Ls as the markets thrashed around.
How much accumulation? The AXIA desks globally made over $10 million this Q1. Time to reflect, then move ahead.
The Overview
A March 12 interview with AXIA’s Alex Haywood will take us far. We’ll reference those from Traders of Our Time, as they’re still protagonists at the desks, yet this article is stand-alone. Haywood begins:
What did the year’s beginning look like, and how were traders managing it?
“In January, successful traders were your ‘early theme’ type—where news is explosive and opportunities are somewhat binary. You just needed to be fast and efficient in market selection. The technical structures were cleaner with visible lines and areas on the charts, indicating a move if it broke this area. Overall, the news drove the momentum for a breakout on clear technical boundaries, allowing profitable trading.”
This is precisely the wheelhouse of The Student, featured in Traders of Our Time and currently trades on the AXIA London floor. He’s a “hybrid trader,” at home with the market profile and navigating macroeconomic implications, news flow, and the like. Though, as we’ve said in Defeating The Discombobulating Dialectic Part II, this label should be redundant. Or rather, the next pioneering trader will make it redundant; such is the New Professional of the future. In short: The Student dinged a seven-figure month this January because of building these hybrid skills over the past five years and “building the bullets”—size. Time to reap.
Haywood’s “early-theme” traders mirror The Warrior’s view on theme evolution and market reaction over time: Phases 1-3—emergence, peak and post-peak. In The Warrior: Part II of Traders of Our Time, he says execution must differ in each phase, and consistent performers are separated in post-peak. “To lose only two, when you make ten, as others lose twelve,” as The Warrior said. In post-peak, the market is tired and unreactive, and headlines fade or reverse quickly. Everything’s just V-shape, V-shape, V-shape!
As Haywood said, within the early stages of new theme emergence, the moves are straight-line, go far and likely hold. Operating here can be binary: smash the bid—going off-side? that’s enough—get out. Smash the bid—going on-side? that’s enough—grab it.
What changed from February to mid-March?
“From mid-February to now [March 12], the skill set required navigation of a ‘latter theme’. [Moving from Phase 2 to 3]. However, some outlier themes were as opportunistic as January. [Smash-and-Grab] But it became more nuanced—Trump was now going to and fro with his tariffs, and people didn’t know if he was believable. The technical charts lost their structure. Then, the flow-news traders came into their own.
We’ve moved from the skill set of clean technical early-theme traders and [smash-and-grab-style] news trading in January to a dynamic flow, subtle-news environment, because some headlines wouldn’t immediately move the market. So, how are you digesting that flow?
Traders familiar with order flow dynamics—the early 2000s, Great Financial Crisis (GFC), or COVID-era traders—have experiences to be dynamic with the flow and ‘subtle news’ skills. However, you also have [The Engineer], who’s both technically proficient (market profile) and dynamic with flow navigation.
When his charts stop constructing perfect boundaries, he’s looking for when a market flow stretches one way, and suddenly there’s big momentum the other way. He’s working these ranges. He’s proving himself—he’s not a ‘linear’ thinking technical trader, which a lot of technical traders are: looking for neat lines, or waiting for levels to be broken.
If the markets have lost their technically clean lines and structure, he can shift dynamically through the flows. The market seems exhausted at one end, then you get powerful dead cat bounces—in the equity markets, where it can release, and then a twenty to thirty handle bounce, which can be profitable. You work with your framework and tools. Take the market profile—you have to compress it if the volatility increases.”
What has been the relationship between market environment cycles, volatility, and experience?
“These environments benefit futures traders. Meanwhile, single-stock, long-only traders would struggle now because the universal stock selection has diminished. Overlay a senior elite trader’s equity curve against the VIX chart. Senior traders from previous cycles perform better when the VIX jumps.
New junior traders struggle when facing a cycle for the first time. In contrast, performing traders have seen a prior cycle like COVID-19, the Great Financial Crisis, or the European debt crisis. Former junior traders without performance in 2020 or 2022 during the early Russia–Ukraine war experienced it—and are relying on that experience to perform in 2025.
They survived the previous volatility cycle and the compression between cycles to make money now.
Despite the volatility, new traders do not perform well. They need lived experience, debriefing techniques, and a learning protocol to understand and adapt, and endure the lower volatility periods until the next good volatility.”
To explain further, consider an extract from Traders of Our Time from The Engineer: Part II.
“This perfectly describes the nature of The Engineer’s growth, and of all the traders in the book! The trader is not made in this market cycle, but they are made in the next. The trader learns, builds, makes mistakes, iterates and survives while the sun shines, while the markets still provide recurrent opportunities for their trading. But only to reap the real rewards in the next cycle when conditions are favourable for his trading once more. That is how to ‘break through the numbers,’ as The Godfather said, describing The Warrior’s growth.”
The bane of those graduating from the simulator to a live trading environment is this cyclicality. It represents your very personal Sod’s Law, just as it has for a new trader on the AXIA London floor. After maximising January’s opportunities, he was promoted to trade live. Then, the markets changed and required a different skill set, which this trader hadn’t experienced.
This highlights why the maturation period for traders has increased over the past two decades. The rate of change and the speed at which markets transition seem faster than ever. This young trader will draw on his January experiences again. Next time, he will apply those experiences for better performance. However, he can’t wait for the “markets to become good again” because who knows how long that would take? He must continue traversing the long process of developing new skills for a changing environment, repeatedly as the market keeps shifting. It’s tough to survive this maturation period, but imagine the arsenal this trader is building; the foundations he will establish after enduring long periods of stress testing, breaking, iterations, and fixes. Don’t underestimate a “slow-brew” trader as we describe in… well, you know what book!
We discussed skill matching different opportunity sets. However, you mentioned how a trader’s physical environment and hardware setup can influence performance. What do you mean by that?
“... [You want] to define the cycles and attach the necessary skill set for the cycle as it shifts to another domain. There are different skill spectrums. You could be a good news trader, but not in a flowy market with ‘dirty’ moves and over-extended structures.
Take this fast-growing young trader—he’s struggled [in Q1]. He’s more of a binary news trader; he hasn’t optimised his technical trading and has underperformed in a dynamic flow-type [slow-burn] market. You could attribute this—and that’s what [The Warrior] said—to the way [this young trader] organises his ladders. He’s prioritised speed, yet sacrificed his peripheral vision [to watch the flows and correlations across markets].
Other traders, like [The Godfather], have performed stronger since February due to their ability to see correlations across all markets and identify value. They’re picking up a lagging market. They’re buying whichever because they can lean on the other markets’ correlations. In other words: the correlation lag—and [The Warrior] and [The Godfather] exploit this.”
One Story, All Stories
We should also investigate the same navigation skills applied dynamically by ‘technical’ traders, though we use that term reluctantly. On Tuesday, April 1st, we heard from The Hero; his insights are noted below. This trader closely ties the price ladder—order flow—to his market profile framework. The savant, tactical price ladder navigator—The Warrior—and the strategic profile operator—The Engineer—alongside Haywood are the three most influential figures in The Hero’s skill development and career growth. This is reflected in his trading.
What’s changed in your market approach for Q1 2025?
“I performed well in some spots but not others. One main thing is to avoid static thinking and move away from hard scenario planning. This is more the case now than at any time in my career. [Since 2016]. This is largely because of the current climate—Trump policies—and general market behaviour.
Some of my biggest trades have come from well-thought-out game plans and scenarios drawn out before executing. Recently, I’ve had a few trades like that. But my biggest asset right now is fluidity—letting go, reassessing, and not being inflexible.
Over the last three months, I’ve been using a specific tactic from a specific morning routine. Every day, I write down six trading principles I’ve anchored myself to. I’ve tweaked and refined them over time. I also write out my calendar each morning. Then, I go through three questions—same ones every day. It’s not a formal questionnaire, just a quick check-in that helps flip the switch so I can enter the market with a trading and analytical mindset.
My worst days came from static thinking or rigid approaches. My best days came from being open-minded and fluid—leaning on technicals, fundamentals, or both.”
Recall Trading With Your Body. Routine is paramount yet counterintuitive. In fast-moving workloads, market volatility, and chaos, the response should be more familiarity, not novelty. Not a holiday—routine breaking—but doubling down on sameness. Control where it can be found outside the markets. Therefore, the more volatile the markets, the trader must stick to firm routine and process. It cannot be an excuse to break routine, or not evolve it to fit the environment. The Hero has violently experienced the best and worst effects of routine and process upon a trader.
Gustave Flaubert once wrote: “Be regular and orderly in your life ... so that you may be violent and original in your work.” He offered it as a rule for artists. Yet, if the trader of the future is to distinguish themselves through creativity, there’s a case for purging the distinction between the two domains. A quote for your monitor’s sticky note.
How do you read today’s market environment, and what does real-time adaptability actually look like in your process?
“In 2022-2023, you had many ‘if-then’ scenarios, even during COVID. Not binary, but you could boil them down to clear market and theme inflections.
Now, you’re navigating a field of tremendous uncertainty, both thematically and practically. In the markets I trade—like S&P or certain bonds—they’re behaving in ways that don’t give me confidence to get convicted one way or another. A lot of it is low time frame and fast finger flow. I question whether those moves are even meaningful. This fluidity has helped me navigate the conditions. I still work through mental frameworks, which I’ve refined over the last few months—but the last three months forced me to accept that I have to take my hands off a little.
I can’t be rigid in my structure. I need to be more principled—anchored to guiding principles rather than hard trading parameters. It’s no longer “if this happens, I do that” or “if that data hits, I’ll do X.” I have to stay flexible, especially in the sensitive areas of the market. I constantly ask: what is the market feedback right now? If it shows something isn’t sensitive, and I’m struggling with it, I want to let it go quickly. I try not to refine my views too much, because if I do, I start anchoring to them. And when I anchor to ideas instead of my principles, it’s harder to recover from bad periods.”
Next Quarter: Suggestions for The Practitioner
As Q1 closes, each trader has questions. What broke? What held? What’s next? Below, a diagnostic tool inspired by the ‘Practitioner’s Postscript’ in Traders of Our Time to help anchor your Q2 with intention.
À la The Engineer: what you do on one end must feed the next—routine into process, into higher-level framework—and then back in reverse.
What can you take from this article and your experience this quarter to update your Routine, Framework, Process as explained in The Engineer's chapters in Traders of Our Time?
I. Framework, Routine, Process (per The Engineer)
What element of your routine did you update or adapt to the Q1 environment?
Did your trading framework remain relevant during January’s breakout and March’s flow-dominant dynamics?
In hindsight, where did your process hold up? Where did it disintegrate under volatility or theme transitions?
Suggestion: Update your “Routine, Framework, Process” cycle with at least one concrete revision per layer based on your Q1 experience.
II. Theme Navigation & Execution (per The Warrior)
Which theme phase did you execute best: emergence, peak, or post-peak?
How clearly could you map the market’s position in the theme arc in real time?
Could you change execution style across phases (binary smash in January, fading/reactive in March)?
Suggestion: Debrief one trade from each phase. Note your reasoning, execution style, and outcome.
III. Your Adjacent Possible (per The Student)
The “adjacent possible” highlights that limits are targets—pointers to where experience and competence should develop next.
Were you limited in Q1? Was it in adapting dynamically? That’s the edge of your current world.
Were you slow or unsure in January’s fast market? That’s your next terrain.
Which trading competency was beyond your reach this quarter?
What adjacent market, product, or skill could have expanded your edge?
Did your knowledge base plateau, or did you break into new domains?
Suggestion: Define the edge of your current skill or knowledge map. What’s beyond it? Target one adjacent area to develop in Q2.
IV. Market Transition Awareness.
When did you realise the environment had changed in Q1?
What were your cues? Did you notice volatility compression, structural breakdown in charts, or a change in headline responsiveness?
How long did it take for your behaviour to catch up with this shift?
Suggestion: Write a timeline of market regime changes from January to March. Mark where your reactions lagged.
V. Tools and Setup Matching Market State
Did your screen and ladder configuration match the market type (e.g., flow vs. binary)?
Were you seeing what you needed, or did you sacrifice vision for speed?
What did your hardware or screen layout amplify? What did it obscure?
Suggestion: Describe one change to your setup to better align with Q2’s possible regimes.
VI. Cyclicality and Maturation (per The Godfather, The Engineer)
What “unusable” experience from prior cycles became valuable in Q1 2025?
If this was your second volatile quarter, what foundational skills were missing the first time around? (You wouldn’t have known what they were back then.)
Suggestion: Map your past cycle experience to Q1 2025. What lessons did you apply?
VII. Principles over Scenarios (per The Hero)
How often did you revert to scenario-based trading?
Could you detach from rigid “if-then” logic and operate from fluid, principle-based conviction?
Do you have something close to six personal trading principles? If they’re implicit, can you make them explicit? Would that let you operate with more freedom?
Suggestion: Review your current trading principles. Based on Q1’s test, rewrite or refine one.
VIII. End-of-Quarter Review Habits
Do you have a scheduled quarterly review process that includes performance data and structured reflection?
What objective data would improve your review quality? For example, performance by theme phase, product type, or volatility cluster.
What story does your Q1 tell? And how does it inform your Q2 posture?
Suggestion: Schedule a quarterly review that includes performance stats, emotional patterns, regime notes, and process updates.
Acknowledgements, Permissions & Disclaimer
Grateful acknowledgement to AXIA for granting access to their traders.
Special appreciation to HH for his help in refreshing the detail of Q1’s market action.
The photograph, provided by Axia Futures, is used with their permission, and they retain full ownership and copyright over the image.
Disclaimer: Do Not Do Stupid Financial Decisions. This Is Not A Game.