You need a little of both. Those people who waited until the dust settled in the wake of 2008 GFC got their heads chopped off. Prediction is not all that bad as its made out to be. It's especially helpful in testing the water, if you will. Now if you know how to combine the two, then you would be miles apart from the regular trader Joe.
Sorry, dude. That you need to find out on your own. Maybe this will help you visualize the process. Think of a travel itinerary and how you plan in advance to reach your destination. Along the way unforeseen things might come up and you need to modify your plan on the spot.
One of the OPs said that everything flows from the positive to negative and that it’s for a reason. Are we saying that the market purposely moves back and fourth from martingale to reverse martingale?
What makes you think that trading is any different from a casino? The double zero mentioned is the fees and the commissions. If trading is purely random, you lose in the long run. PS: I’d appreciate it if someone can help put me on the right path. I’ve wasted a lot of time with wrong paths. Is there any path which is not purely gambling?
A casino is negative expectation. Take, say $10,000 and gamble it in Las Vegas. You will lose that $10,000. Las Vegas casinos will give you rooms, food, cash back as comps. That is the most you are getting. If you know what you are doing in the stockmarket, you can make a lot of monies on top of that $10,000 capital. Apples to oranges comparison. If you have a trading edge with your trading system, you will make monies because it is positive expectation. And you want to be successful in the stockmarket, put in the work to learn what works in the stockmarket. Give it 2 years of serious study and forget the bogus get rich schemes as there are no shortcuts to trading proficiency.
Nothing new under the sun. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” We know that things tend to repeat but each repeat can be different and is. The markets are dynamic. We know there will always be BO’s, PBs, Trading Ranges, triangles, wedges, flags…etc ad nauseum…but each was made different. What happened is important but “how” it happened is just as important because both have something to say about “what” may happen next. However, back testing doesn’t mean something will always work in the future because there are too many variables, some known, some unknown, and some unknowable. We trade in a grey fog of uncertainty. That is our lot as traders. We have to embrace uncertainty not try to skirt around it.