The Trader's Journey How to Build Automated Trading Systems with Dave Mabe
Dec 13, 2025
Dave Mabe, computer scientist and former Trade Ideas CTO who builds tools for rules-based trading. He talks about turning trade journals into formal backtests. He explains automating execution to enforce rules and scale frequency. He covers simplicity over complexity, stress-testing strategies, and the workflow from hypothesis to live trading.
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Backtest Your Intuition Early
- Run an initial backtest even of a discretionary system to compare performance and learn.
- Use backtesting as a fast path to confidence instead of waiting for years of live experience.
Systems Replace Emotion With Data
- Backtesting turns subjective decisions into repeatable if-then rules and reduces emotional errors.
- Individual trades become irrelevant; only aggregate performance matters.
Diversify Strategies To Smooth Equity
- Multiple uncorrelated strategies smooth your combined equity curve and reduce drawdown pain.
- Adding strategies is a key milestone to trade with more consistency and size.
