I agree with your analogy about hindsight analysis but I...

I agree with your analogy about hindsight analysis but I literally failed in that number of time because market is and can be manipulated at any stage and on any stock in my opinion and that is the reason most if not all says "market is unpredictable".

I have learnt that manipulation by trader is less of harm then manipulation by the company operator themselves.. as most trader manipulate for short term gain which only impact to the investor who either exiting or entering the trade at the same time while if company operator get engaged in to manipulation activity (which is common to mining & biotech and many micro caps) then it could harm more investors in long run in my opinion.

1 example of my recent trade: I used to hold big position in one of the micro-cap mining stock. company announced bridging loan facility to help with cash-flow which to my thinking means there is issue with cash-flow and near term results not going to be great so I exit with loss but share price keep going up on this news to my surprise. Then company issued appendix 3 where director bought shares on market 1 month ago (yes they were late because no one was in office .. lol ) so price went even further and then within a week or so company said they don't need bridging facility anymore so price went further up ... lol ...... and just last week company without any material change in revenue stream announced ohh by the way we need that bridging facility and we are using that now (so basically declaration of before quarterly comes out next week) ... price went down 10% (nothing compare to 50% gain it went for in last three months) lol.... ! Now, that stock has BOT all over it with all efforts made to make small transaction around 4pm to keep price up and they managed to do it on Friday when entire market was down... !

In this scenario no matter how good one is in their hindsight analysis there is no escape .... in getting caught in all these manipulations in my opinion.. !