549: Why I Trade 25 Strategies After 17 Years of Trading (Dave Mabe)

Why I Trade 25 Strategies After 17 Years of Trading In episode 549 of the Desire To Trade Podcast, you will be listening to an interview with Dave Mabe, who's been trading for more than 20 years, sharing how nearly quitting during a massive drawdown pushed him to rethink everything about how he trades. What started as one working idea turned into 25 fully automated strategies running every day. He also dives into the hardest lesson of his career—trading through a brutal drawdown—and how it forced him to build a system for creating new strategies. The video is also available for you to watch on YouTube. >> Watch the video recording! Topics Covered In This Episode 00:00 Introduction 00:37 Who is Dave Mabe? 01:06 Fully automated trading vs manual execution 01:40 How Dave started trading 04:04 The problem with learning from intuition-based traders 05:50 Can you really make money with discretionary trading? 06:45 First automated strategy: success or failure? 09:28 Do algo traders struggle with emotions too? 11:09 Is coding required for automated trading in 2026? 12:13 Why backtests look great but live trading fails 15:48 How much variance between backtest and live is acceptable? 16:45 What separates traders who quit from those who last 20 years 19:51 Generating new trading strategies consistently 23:30 Is there a limit to how many strategies you can run? 24:46 Where to find Dave Mabe and his free backtesting course (link below) What did you like best in this podcast episode? Let's talk in the comments below, or join me in the Facebook group! Desire To Trade's Top Resources DesireToTRADE Forex Trader Community (free group!) Complete Price Action Strategy Checklist One-Page Trading Plan (free template) Recommended brokers: EightCap (preferred Crypto and FX Broker) AxiTrader (use our link to get a special bonus) Desire To TRADE Academy Get a copy of Prop Trading Secrets (Author: Kathy Lien & Etienne Crete) About The Desire To Trade Podcast Subscribe via iTunes (take 2 seconds and leave the podcast a review!) Subscribe via Stitcher Subscribe via TuneIn Subscribe via Google Play See all podcast episodes How to find Dave Mabe Dave's free backtesting course What one thing will you implement after listening to this podcast episode? Leave a comment below, or join me in the Facebook group!