I think we're getting a bit too much into the weeds here. So let's just agree that we define "prediction" differently. There are some people who think they can predict a move before it begins, and predict how far it will go (and when!). To me, that's full on prediction. I don't buy into it. I personally regard reacting to the market's activity as a distant cousin, at best, to any notions of "prediction." Beyond that we find ourselves in the realm of semantics.
The driving a car analogy is put forward incorrectly. When trading at the extreme right hand side of the chart...in a car, nothing can be seen forward of the front bumper. The only information you possess, is of the road behind you. Good look with those junctions.
Pull up a chart of FISV and tell me that there has not been a predictable, buyable pattern there since 2011. The most simple pattern is a trend. I bet you also believe in efficient market theory and all that random walk crap.
I trade based only on stats of the past, history repeats. Will it repeat when trade goes in? No clue. But works for me.
Can you kindly explain and expand on your statement. I have been told over and over again here on ET that chart reading is not about prediction of the future moves? Thanks.
10% a month? how many top guns out there on retail and institutional level gain 10% a month each single month. Anyone giving 2% a month, year after year is in the top 1% of traders. Also, price patterns "are" predictable and you have to be able to predict when a pattern will work and when it will fail. This ability and inability is "one of the several tough factors" which make trading the most difficult business out there.
In conclusion: Trading is part art, part science, -- Which I've been saying since Day 1. Most linear-minded, stubborn, dumb people...believe you either have 100% future prediction abilities, or nothing. They fail to have a malleable, grey, dynamic mind. Trading the market is like flirting, or dancing, with a woman...you have to see and sense her mood and signals, You don't just simply flirt and flirt and dance and dance your Own way like a redundant jackhammer. I know what I'm talking about, because I am what you would call...Elite, I've been staring at the daily Dow and Spy charts daily for the past eight years. I would dare challenge anyone to trade/predict/manage it against me. -- even maybe mythical Japanese trader CIS, but he trades Japan's main index...so it wouldn't be an absolutely fair competition.