To react you have to predict, even with an open market. You know what the market has done but to trade you have to make a prediction about what it will do next. Your mind might be acting very quickly but you're still predicting whether the market is going up or down in the next minute, hour, day, week or whatever your timeframe is.
NO, I am not predicting. I am playing probablilities of price action based on past experiences. That is a reaction, not a prediction. Obviously I would not take the trade if I thought I would be unsuccessful, so yes, I am predicting a successful termination of the trade, but I am not predicting a number at which the trade will be terminated. I let the market tell me that.
To me, the MARKET is deciding which way it will go and my past experiences have TAUGHT me what to do. I've done NOTHING to predict anything, the market has done all the work for me. It has decided where it will go and I try and make money by reacting. I know what you are trying to say but the idea of predicting and reacting are different, regardless of the wording you want to use.
You can use as many euphemisms as you like but you're predicting the direction of the market just as much as the people you criticise. No one claims to be able to predict an exact market top or bottom but are simply using their knowledge and experience to say it's more likely to go up or down and make a trade on that basis. Of course you need to do more than predict - you need to manage risk - but no one can trade without predicting market direction (esoteric option strategies aside).
This statement should be abolished from ET... its the most meaningless BS I've seen. When you put a trade in (whether with a stop or not), you are making a prediction. Its one big f*ing contradiction.
I swear, some people just don't get it. Yes, I predict success with every trade I make. I don't say ES is going to 1500 in the next three sessions. I enter the trade and I analyze where I am bar by bar. No prediction whatsoever other than hitting the buy or sell button.
I don't "need" to be anything. I just know when you understand price action there is no need to predict. When you learn that you will see what I mean.