The following extract is a Top Traders Unplugged summary of a conversation between the podcast hosts Niels and Alan with Michael Pomada, President and CEO of Crabel Capital Management.
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Crabel Capital Management is a different kind of systematic shop. Founded by Toby Crabel in 1987, the firm built its reputation on short-term quantitative strategies, trading hundreds of futures and FX markets with a technology infrastructure that prioritises execution precision as much as signal quality. By the time Michael Pomada took over as CEO, Crabel had grown to over five billion dollars in assets and was as much a technology firm as an investment one.
In this TTU Miniseries conversation, Pomada brings a practitioner’s perspective to some of the deepest questions in systematic trading. What do anomalies actually represent? How do you evaluate a strategy when the Sharpe ratio tells only part of the story? Pomada argues that market anomalies are ultimately the product of mistakes made by participants, and that disciplined, rules-based systems are built to capture exactly those moments. His framing is direct: volatility creates opportunities, and preparedness determines who benefits.
The conversation touches on Crabel’s core philosophy, the evolving role of machine learning within a structured research process, and the role execution infrastructure plays in sustaining edge at scale. Pomada’s thinking reflects the influence of Toby Crabel’s original motto: live to fight another day. Keeping drawdowns small, protecting the ability to continue trading, and letting the upside emerge from disciplined positioning. Those principles underpin everything Crabel does.
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