About Crabel Capital Management

Who We Are

Crabel is a research and technology-driven investment firm specializing in systematic, automated trading of global futures and currencies. For more than 30 years, we’ve delivered uncorrelated returns to our clients by developing trading strategies designed to systematically capture market anomalies and by building the technology to test, refine, and implement those strategies.

Our Leadership Team

Toby Crabel

Founder, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer

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Michael Pomada

President, Chief Executive Officer, and Portfolio Manager

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Toby Crabel

Founder, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer

Toby Crabel is Founder, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer of Crabel Capital Management and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. As Chairman and CIO, Toby spends his time leading the firm’s ongoing research efforts, guiding the management team, and mentoring talented researchers. The firm’s investment team continues to diversify a portfolio of strategies traded through a proprietary infrastructure specifically developed to implement Toby’s unique style of trading.

Toby began his career in 1980 with the Chicago-based brokerage firm RB&H Financial Services. At RB&H, he traded customer accounts using a discretionary approach. However, working near floor traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, he quickly became interested in applying a more quantitative methodology to profit from what he believed were explainable and predictable observations in price behavior. Toby’s research on the matter led him to publish a commodity advisory letter, The Active Trader, devoted to describing these predicted price observations. In 1989, he took his research even further and authored Day Trading with Short Term Price Patterns and Opening Range Breakouts, which was one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of how to trade short-term price patterns across markets. In it, Toby detailed his core philosophy: that robust investment strategies should capture enduring and explainable market participant behavior that is often most prevalent in very short-term market patterns exhibited across futures and forex markets.

Toby also worked for Niederhoffer Investments where he continued his research and traded for Victor Niederhoffer while managing a small customer portfolio of his own. When he left Niederhoffer, Toby leveraged that portfolio along with his early research on price patterns and market behavior to build the foundation for Crabel Capital Management as it is known today.

Michael Pomada

PRESIDENT, Chief Executive Officer, AND PORTFOLIO MANAGER

Michael Pomada is President and Chief Executive Officer of Crabel Capital Management and a member of the firm’s Leadership and Executive Committees. In addition to his executive role, Michael is also the Portfolio Manager of Crabel Gemini and Crabel Contra and developed Crabel Advanced Trend. He spends his time on research and product development, as well as overseeing the front office teams.

Michael joined Crabel in April 2008 as a portfolio manager focusing on the firm’s Equity Main strategies. In late 2009, he spearheaded a firmwide initiative to revamp the organization’s trading infrastructure, execution process, and microstructure research. He went on to serve as Crabel’s Chief Operating Officer from June 2011 to July 2016 when he became President and CEO.

Prior to joining Crabel, Michael spent time at UBS and managed portfolios at Manchester Trading (Niederhoffer) and Coast Asset Management. He began his career in sales and business development in the interactive entertainment industry before transitioning into finance. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Michael also holds an MBA with a concentration in investments and statistics from the University of Southern California.

Featured Award

Over the years, we’ve been recognized for our commitment to excellence and achievement in the quantitative investment industry. We are proud to share our trophy case of awards presented by well-known organizations, including the Pinnacle Achievement Award, which honors Toby Crabel for his advances in the industry.

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Our History

A Vision to Redefine
Quantitative Finance

1987–1999: The Early Years

While pursuing his own research interests and trading on behalf of other firms, Toby Crabel formed Toby Crabel & Co. as a sole proprietorship in 1987, which would eventually become Crabel Capital Management. Toby’s desire to redefine the potential in quantitative finance and create new ways of studying, predicting, and approaching the market shaped his early vision and remains the bedrock of the firm’s identity.

In 1992, Toby launched the Crabel Diversified Futures program. He spent the next few years systematizing core ideas to reduce risk introduced by discretion and developing critical research and trade generation software that’s still in use today. In 1998, Crabel Capital Management launched the Crabel Multi-Product program composed of Toby’s legacy Crabel Diversified Futures strategies.

2000–2009: Research, Automation, & Execution

Throughout the 2000’s, Crabel continued to diversify and improve the Crabel Multi-Product program with the addition of uncorrelated, robust trading strategies obtained via joint ventures with external portfolio teams and by leveraging internal talent. By 2008, Crabel had experienced its largest expansion period in terms of adding research talent, which broadened our horizons and laid the groundwork for the modern era.

Also during this time, we intensely focused on fully automating the trade execution process to serve our clients more effectively. Between 2004 and 2005, Crabel implemented straight-through processing for stocks and futures that served as a catalyst for further automation. In early 2007, these efforts reached their height and after extensive research, development, and testing, Crabel implemented full execution automation in early 2009.

2010–2015: Continuous Improvement & Expansion

Following the automation efforts of the prior decade and fueled by our research expansion along with a growth in assets, Crabel launched a multi-year project beginning in 2010 that resulted in the creation of our proprietary Crabel Trading System (CTS) that integrates numerous functions like data management, internal risk controls, and trade execution. Between 2011 and 2013, we added co-locations in Chicago, New York, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong to enable more efficient trading in nearly 200 global markets.

In mid-2010, Crabel formed an Executive Committee to help navigate strategic decisions and overall firm management under Toby Crabel’s leadership. As part of this evolution, Michael Pomada assumed the role of COO a year later. During this time, we also moved our trading headquarters from Milwaukee to Los Angeles, leaving the Milwaukee office as the official home of our operations teams.

In April 2014, Crabel launched the Crabel Advanced Trend program as a stand-alone, flat fee product. Originally designed as a sub-portfolio of the Crabel Multi-Product, Crabel Advanced Trend aims to be the world’s best trend follower, providing alpha at beta-plus fees.

2016–2020: Further Expansion

In 2016, Crabel made additional changes to the leadership team in response to changing market and company needs. Michael Pomada became President and CEO, and Rick Rusin took over as COO, under the guidance of Toby Crabel as Chairman and CIO.

In July 2016, Crabel launched the Crabel Gemini program as a stand-alone, flat fee product. Originally designed as a sub-portfolio of the Crabel Multi-Product, Crabel Gemini is a pure alpha product with low correlation to all traditional and alternative asset classes. Crabel Gemini, along with Crabel Advanced Trend, launched as European UCITS funds in October 2017.

In May 2019, Crabel launched the Crabel Contra program as another stand-alone, flat fee product. Crabel Contra, also originally designed as a sub-portfolio of the Crabel Multi-Product, is a defensive program that is negatively correlated to global equity markets.

As the culmination of our product expansion efforts, Crabel soft-closed the Crabel Multi-Product in January 2020 and embraced the modern era of custom portfolio construction to best serve our client’s unique needs.

2021 & Beyond: Commitment to Our Values

Moving forward, Crabel will continue our pursuit of innovative strategies and new technologies that we believe may bring our clients the greatest return on their investments—both the investment they make in the markets and the one they make in our firm.

In addition to exceptional client service, we remain committed to proactively assessing and addressing the impacts our trading activities and day-to-day operations have on our employees, our environment, and our communities.

Responsibility & Sustainability

Environmental Sustainability

At both our Los Angeles and Milwaukee offices, we have taken strides to reduce our environmental impact and make our workspaces as green as possible, including implementing programs for recycling, composting, e-waste management, paper and water reduction, and qualified mass transit. Our Los Angeles headquarters is an LEED EB Silver certified workplace that has a solar panel system for the building and designated electric vehicle charging stations in the parking garage. We’ve also made various infrastructure improvements to our Milwaukee office, such as installing motion-detecting LED lights and an energy-efficient HVAC system.

Social Responsibility

Our aim has always been to provide our people—many of whom have been with us for years or even decades—with important and challenging work, competitive compensation, educational opportunities, and a dynamic and inspiring workplace so they can thrive personally and professionally.

Crabel values diverse backgrounds and experiences and believes diversity strengthens our firm. Our Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies demonstrate our commitment to diversity and inclusion and ensure our hiring practices and work environments remain respectful and professional.

Internal & Regulatory Governance

We maintain high standards to ensure our firm stays current on the latest industry and regulatory developments. We have many internal committees responsible for keeping Crabel apprised on matters related to operations, allocations, valuations, risk, algorithm oversight, and much more. We participate in industry events and monitor regulatory guidance to ensure internal procedures are appropriately designed for our business.

Contact us for a more detailed explanation of our ESG and DEI efforts.

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