The only investing going on in the markets is from the activities of disciplined, long-only value investors. Most other "investing" going on in the markets is speculation. Not making a judgement call on speculation, but it's not investing. But that's just semantics. For speculators, the point they become successful is probably when they have fleshed out their edge and have positive expectancy. That's when the "gambling" becomes "professional." But a speculative trade is never investing.
A similar question is what role does luck play in trading? The simple use of stops can protect you against bad luck and open you up to good luck. So theoretically, even if you are just guessing, you have limited loss and unlimited profit potential.
Consistently? As in day after day? Perhaps, but the rarity of such a thing seems like it would be beyond extreme.
Be careful with this....don't imply that close stops are going to make you a great trader. Instead, you are likely just to start losing a little...very consistently. Stop placement I think is the real trick to this game.
its guessing with a cheatsheet,if you see ants,you put your picnic blanket somewhere else, a blind man wouldn't have that advantage,in this case eyesight would be an edge,it's a bad setup and you avoid it,the more setups you see,market tipping it's hand, the better guesser you become
if you hand chart the market profile in 30 minute bars,it keeps you in the market,flat or not you are in and your hand will tell you where the market is going 3 or 4 times a day,used that as an example of how precognition is not far fetched at all,the more you are immersed in the market,the better the feel
getting back to horse betting, what if you could take half your bet off midway through the race? Then you make that slight move away from guessing into money management and you've narrowed the amount of data you need to analyse. It gets pretty simple at that point. How many horses in last place halfway go on to win place or show?
or for that matter, what if you could add to your bet halfway through the race? What started out as just a guess now has a very good chance of finishing quite well.