My Trading Licks

My Trading Licks
  • Honesty
    (5)
  • Quality
    (5)
  • Cost
    (3)
  • Support
    (5)
  • Verified Trades
    (5)
  • User Experience
    (5)
4.7

Summary

Mike DiBari of My Trading Licks is the real deal, and an inspiration to young and old traders alike.

Through the crucible of fire and torment, this guy has traveled the path from failure to success.

He is an unconventional renaissance man that has created something totally unique. And as far as I can tell, totally unique to the trading community.

The track record of trades are in fact, the real deal. And fully verified.

Even if you do not subscribe our purchase his advisory service, the story of his success is worth a thousand trading books. A testament to will power, focus, and overcoming the fear of being unique.

Thanks for reading today’s review of My Trading Licks

What is My Trading Licks? In a nutshell, My Trading Licks is an SP500 signal service.

Before I jump into the ‘nuts and bolts’ of this review, I want to inform the audience that I have an affiliate relationship with My Trading Licks. If you purchase a subscription, TradingSchools.Org will be receiving an affiliate commission of 25% of your purchase.

All of the screamers and haters can now climb up your soap boxes and commence the verbal thrashing. But as always, this stupid blog is a massive time suck with plenty of expenses. The only way to keep these reviews (mostly negative) moving through the proverbial sewer pipe, is to form the occasional alliance which keeps the lights on.

For newer readers, you should know that I take a positive review with complete seriousness. In the past 3 years of writing reviews, there has only been a handful of positive reviews. In fact, maybe two positive reviews per year. I understand that in many instances, the life savings of many readers are ‘on the line.’ I get it. So with that being said, and being fully transparent, let’s jump into this.

Who is My Trading Licks?

My Trading Licks is a one-man operation. The owner is Mike DiBari, currently living in the New England area of the United States.

My Trading Licks is currently occupying the following web and social media profiles:

To really understand Mike DiBari, you have to first understand his back story. For nearly all of his adult life, he has been a professional musician and guitar player. He has played in numerous bands, worked in various music stores, produced lots music, teaches professionally, and is absolutely obsessed with the electric guitar.

I spent an entire afternoon watching all of his YouTube videos. The following YouTube video is a sample of Mike playing…

Why did I include this video? Is Mike DiBari being an excellent musician relevant to trading? In my opinion, it does. Being a professional guitar player takes a lifetime of practice and dedication. By watching Mike play, you get the sense that this guy is focused on mastering a particular subject.

Watch this riff of Pinball Wizard..who in the hell can play the guitar like this?

As I watched these videos, I thought to myself…what if he put this same focus into trading?

My Trading Licks Track Record of Trades

Mike DiBari posts his track record on the following linked page.

As you can see, it is quite impressive. Let’s go over a few details that I find important, and very revealing. The following is based upon a starting balance of $10k.

  • 2014 had a return of 54.97%, maximum drawdown of -1.41%, profit factor of 32.06.
  • 2015 had a return of 32.29%, maximum drawdown of -21.02%, profit factor of 1.76.
  • 2016 had a return of 30.56%, maximum drawdown of -24.27%, profit factor of 2.03.
  • As of July 14, 2017, a return of 21.3%, maximum drawdown of -1.57%, profit factor of 2.32.

What is very revealing is that Mike DiBari takes only an average of 1.8 trades per month. With extreme focus, he applies all of his energy to only a single market: SP500.

Are you starting to see the parallel between his singular focus on mastering the guitar vs. his singular focus on the SP500?

But are these trades real? My next step was to contact Mike DiBari. And I wanted to see these trades with actual brokerage statements? As you are probably already aware, plenty of people on the internet make wild exaggerations about trading performance.

During the month of June 2017, TradingSchools.Org began a series of emails and phone conversations with Mike DiBari. First things first, we notified Mike that a review would be written. So he better be able to prove these fantastical returns. To our surprise…he was completely open and honest. He simply opened the book and we were able to verify the authenticity of the performance summary. He really eats his own cooking.

As I interviewed Mike, I began to realize that he is definitely not the typical trader that I interview. He is definitely an ‘out of the box’ thinker.

Mike DiBari Trading Method

Most people enter the trading game by learning to draw charts and spot chart patterns. They will then begin applying trading indicators. At which point, they begin trading and usually lose their money. Mike is no different.

He started off just like you and I. He read all the books on technical analysis, learned to draw chart patterns, tried day trading, swing trading, the whole enchilada. And nothing worked. He knew he had to dramatically alter his course. And so everything he had purchased and learned was tossed into the trash can. He realized the hard way that the vast majority of trading products are pure nonsense. Produced by charlatans and fakes that could not profitably trade themselves. Always willing to sell the next indicator or software package to the desperate and the naive.

Mike tuned it all out. Threw it all out. And took a radical path.

In our interview, Mike described that the first thing he needed to do was completely focused on only a singular market. Become a master at one market, like playing the guitar.

And so, did he go out and purchase a backtesting program? Nope. He fired up Microsoft Excel. No charts! No fancy indicators! Just a good old fashioned spreadsheet.

And what data did he use? Here is the crazy part… volume. He created an oscillator that measures the ebbs and flow of stock market volume. That’s it.

Is there anything subjective to his method? Nope. Everything he does is backtested. From scratch, he programmed and built several trading models that specifically look for anomalies in trading volume.

Try and imagine this for a moment. Here is this professional guitar player, with no experience using Microsoft Excel, creating these trading models using only volume. Honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to start! But this goes to show the level of focus and dedication that this guy applies to something he chooses to master. He is a real renaissance man. An out of the box thinker that is comfortable moving away from the herd mentality.

Say what you will, the actual results speak for themselves.

Mike DiBari does not do ‘Educational Products’

With most vendors, they usually have an educational product. Some sort of $3,000 package to “teach you the secrets” of trading. But Mike wants nothing to do with selling that sort of stuff.

His focus is on mastering his trading by continuously programming and expanding his knowledge and expertise at only a single subject. Mastering the direction of the stock market.

Does Mike have a problem with chart patterns or trading indicators? Not at all. In our interview, he describes only having a problem with things that don’t actually work. He tested and programmed everything that he could get his hands upon. Nothing worked with consistency.

The only thing he could find that actually tested well, and stood the test of time…was raw volume.

I asked Mike to expound upon this concept, he replied “Volume cannot be gamed. It is the truest expression of crowd psychology. And the only way to beat the stock market is to do exactly the opposite of what the crowd is doing.”

Sounds so damn easy. But so hard to actually pull off. We have all been there. Piling into a trade when the chart looks so inviting. Only to quickly discover that the chart pattern was just a mirage, a figment of our imagination. A byproduct of a flaw within the human mind…its something called Apophenia or Patternicity.

These flaws work great for a caveman or a homeless person. But are absolutely terrible when applied to financial markets.

That’s what Mike focuses upon. Building models that define ‘group think’ in financial markets, and then exploiting the tendency for crowds to be wrong.

Wrapping Things Up

In an earlier part of this article, I included a link to Mike DiBari playing the guitar. Specifically, the riff of The Who’s Pinball Wizard.

I included that riff specifically, not to highlight Mike DiBari’s guitar mastery. Instead, I want the reader to understand the underlying meaning and how this relates to trading.

If you remember, the Pinball Wizard was a character from the rock opera movie, Tommy.

The story of Tommy is about a young boy that witnesses his mother being murdered by his abusive stepfather. Young Tommy goes into complete shock. He becomes “deaf, dumb, and blind” to the world around him. Eventually, Tommy stumbles onto a pinball machine and discovers that he is a natural prodigy. Fame and fortune follow as Tommy becomes a world champion pinball player.

Nobody could understand how this “deaf, dumb, and blind kid” could become a master at something that required such intense skill. But the secret to Tommy’s ability was not in his ability to master ‘what worked’ for everyone else. The secret was his ability to drown out the noise of the crowd. The ability to see the world through his own personal, and unique lens. A perspective born from pain and disappointment.

This is what makes Mike DiBari a special trader. He has discovered that by throwing out everything he learned from ‘the crowd’ and then ultimately creating something truly unique…the market has rewarded him.

This is the true lesson. You must be an original thinker. Thanks for reading. I will leave you with the original The Who: Pinball Wizard…time to turn up the speakers.

 

 

 

46 Comments

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