Top Traders Unplugged

TTU152: Where is the Open? ft. Toby Crabel

Apr 15, 2026
Guest
Toby Crabel
Toby Crabel, founder of Crabel Capital Management and pioneer of opening-range breakout trading, reflects on decades of market practice. He discusses how the traditional open has faded, liquidity shifting to closes, why momentum edges eroded, the growing importance of execution, and the realistic limits of AI in trading.
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ANECDOTE

From Tennis Courts To The Trading Pit

  • Toby Crabel started as a runner on the Mercantile Exchange after playing professional tennis and became a chartist for a broker where he began trading cattle and other markets.
  • He moved from trend following to shorter-term trading influenced by the floor-trader day-trading mentality and developed opening range breakout strategies in the mid-1980s.
INSIGHT

Why Opening Range Breakout Lost Punch

  • Opening Range Breakout (ORB) is fundamentally a momentum measure, but its effectiveness has eroded as market structure changed.
  • ORB performed extremely well after the book's publication, yet later deteriorated as liquidity and session trading expanded, reducing follow-through from the open.
INSIGHT

The Open Is Obscured By 24-Hour Trading

  • The classical 'open' reference point has been obscured by 24-hour trading; alternative anchors like prior-day close, 24-hour highs/lows, and overnight moves now matter more.
  • Crabel sees more reversals and fewer clean follow-through days today compared with decades past.
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