Personally i don't try and predict. I am trading a pattern. When that pattern occurs i take the trade . There is no prediction involved. I just trade the pattern. Spot the pattern. Take the trade. Spot the pattern. Take the trade. Spot the pattern. Take the trade. You can program a computer with that logic and just let it run in the corner. The computer is running very simple pattern matching logic. That anyone thinks it is predicting is just something they are projecting on to the situation.
most businesses are tough and mo.st do not make it:why? because they give up too soon,or because of something forces them to give up too soon:like running out of capital, running out of time because too busy looking after job family etc. those who succeed are not smarter but have just been more persistent:Einstein once said:"i am not smarter than others, i just stay with the problem longer" [trying to solve it,being more persistent]. that is my personal experience: persistence is the holy grail, i started ten years ago to learn to day trade and have just turned profitable. if you lose 95% of your trades, then you are doing the reverse of what you should be doing.It has taken me 10 years to do just that. you cannot sell the top or buy the bottom so putting tight stops is not being sensible. do you think traders like Goldman Sachs trade with stops:they never go all in and never get a margin call.But it is also true that they understand the market and rarely buy the top and sell the bottom:most traders trade without trying to understand the market and think they can operate with risk reward and stops. It took me ten years to understand the market and how to position myself and i only use wide or 'gigantic' stops just in case of any 'black swan ' event.
There are two contrary trains of thought here. Should traders be: 1) predictive or 2) reactive. I am in the reactive camp. I react and trade after it happens, not before it happens!
Something missing from summary: When is a better time for entry/exit? Doesnt matter what one calls it. Linear regression can be said to be predicting. What matters is do you have the right model?
By taking the trade you are of course "predicting", based on prior testing I presume, that the pattern will succeed. Why do so many shy away from the P word?
If you have a viable trade plan and behave with consistent discipline as to the rules of your plan then it doesn't matter what the next move is, or the one after that or the one after that. You just need to be profitable over a statistically significant number of trades. If the drawdowns can too lengthy, you may need to sharpen the plan. IOW, you are not predicting and certainly not hoping but simply taking your defined signals and observing your rules. Nobody knows what happens next.
Its a very loose term that could mean a lot of things. Google the word 'prediction' you get a picture of a guy looking into a crystal ball! You can make money trading just by following a set of pretty basic rules. No prediction is required you just need to following the rules correctly.
I think it is a semantics thing. If you trade a pattern, you obviously either buy or you short. The direction you take is because the pattern picked it. So the pattern says buy, it is predicting an up move. You programmed the pattern, so you predicted an up move based on the pattern. Like I said - semantics. Not arguing here, just clarifying my point.