055 - Toby Crabel - Short-Term Futures Trading with Size!

<p>Toby Crabel — founder of Crabel Capital Management (~$5B AUM) and author of the legendary *Day Trading with Short Term Price Patterns and Intraday Breakouts* (1990), the book that gave the world the opening range breakout and NR4/NR7 patterns — joins the show for a rare, wide-ranging conversation. Toby traces his path from a pro tennis career to the Chicago trading floors, his formative stints with Victor Niederhoffer and his early connections to Monroe Trout and Paul Tudor Jones, and how zero-commission floor trading shaped his short-term edge from day one. He unpacks why the &quot;clean open&quot; that powered ORB for decades has eroded under 24-hour markets and institutional flow, why studying historical price shocks (1987, COVID) is non-negotiable for systematic survival, and why PhDs and machine learning are no substitute for a causal, market-structure-driven research process. For the solo systematic trader, Toby&#39;s advice is refreshingly practical: start with one market, build strict rules around a single idea, and know exactly when your edge has died. A must-watch for anyone serious about the history, robustness, and future of short-term systematic trading.</p><p><br></p><p>Research: https://algoadvantage.substack.com</p><p>Courses &amp; Community: https://algoadvantage.io</p><p><br></p><p>Music:</p><p>Intro &amp; Outro created by me on Suno - Algo Analogue I call it.</p><p>Pre-Intro - Your Destiny from HookSounds - No subscription licensing.</p><p><br></p><p>Contents:</p><p>0:00 AI, Quant Research and Market Regimes</p><p>5:50 Toby Crabel’s Systematic Trading Origins</p><p>13:00 How the Opening Range Breakout Was Built</p><p>18:36 Lessons from Legendary Traders</p><p>25:04 Why Traders Must Study Market History</p><p>30:22 How 24-Hour Markets Changed Trading</p><p>38:02 How Systematic Trading Has Evolved</p><p>45:17 Crabel’s Multi-Market Strategy Portfolio</p><p>53:32 Trading as a Business</p><p>59:58 Price, Volume and Wyckoff Principles</p><p>1:06:31 Trading Short-Term Strategies at Scale</p><p>1:14:00 Capacity, Execution and Market Impact</p><p>1:22:00 Systematic Risk and Portfolio Management</p><p>1:30:00 Advice for the newer trader</p><p>1:38:00 The Future of Systematic Trading</p>