Mike DiBari – Founder/CEO MyTradingLicks.com

Bio: What started out for me in 2010 as a simple trade, has now grown into a lifelong passion for financial markets. I quickly went from the intense fury of a day trader to the nail biting of a swing trader and now consider myself a recovering trade-o-holic. I’ve since retracted to a quieter life of spreadsheets and quantitative strategies and I’m grateful for the time it’s afforded me to do the things I really enjoy in life.

Mark Ursell from Tradinformed.com pretty much sums up my approach in a nutshell… “He has a fascinating way of understanding the markets that I have never heard about anyone using before. Most technical traders totally ignore volume whereas Mike made it the central part of his strategy.” You can read Mark’s full interview with me How to Use Big Volume to Predict the Price Direction at his website.

When I first started to look deeper into market volume, I found very few technical tools available so I developed my own. The TVO System was created as a simple yet effective method to trade the market without the use of price or any other technical indicators.

And if you’re wondering what the name “My Trading Licks” is all about, as you may have guessed, I also play guitar. Well, I actually dedicated a good part of my life to the instrument and I now enjoy playing professionally with some of the finest blues musicians in the country.

In the blues, players “trade licks” on stage in a healthy cutting contest to try to outdo each other. I think of traders in the stock market the same way. We’re always up against the guy on the other side of the trade, trying to be the one who comes out on top. But just like mastering music, becoming a master trader is really about discovering that your greatest adversary is really yourself.

Hear me talk about my approach to options trading, hiking and more in my interview with Chicago Sean from his podcast series Trading with @chicagosean.