Here's an insightful post from Mike Bellafiore of SMB, summarizing a savvy trader's perspective on what you need to know to be a successful trader. The key point is that the actions of market participants speak loudest. When you can read the flows of buying and selling, what people say about their positions or views becomes irrelevant.

This was especially relevant to Friday's trade in stocks, which gave us a multi standard deviation move on much higher than usual volume. Selling pressure, as measured by upticks/downticks was continuous through the day, suggesting that those additional market participants were executing one way dominantly.