Hi Guys - this is Husband Of Fi: darling wife brought this thread to my attention since i have only ever worked in stock markets, and that's for 15 years now.
I think the biggest issue for modelling markets is the almost infinite number of variables (each participant is a variable in themselves!). Somebody with out-math me here i am sure, but there is a big cause and effect problem with economics, ecascerbated by the fact the most of the variables are organic and emotive rather than rational. Thus, its always been my view that the best discipline to possesses is psychology rather than economics. Now i, like many of you perhaps, would have thought that human nature (being the driver) was modelable, but long story short, its not! There are a few "natural number" (what is the term??) rules that certainly do get you somewhat ahead of the pack, eg, Fibonacci levels, Stochastic Oscillators, but the bulk of the analysis we use is of a statistical nature. The bulk of predictive modelling as traded by traders (eg hedge funds, rather than long only investors, eg Franklin, Fidelity etc) is one way or another based around mean reversion, this is a better than average sort of modelling too, and somewhat organic in its origins. The best rules are the simple ones, and the emotive ones, the market is driven by only two basic principles: Fear and Greed. I think for markets a 5 year view isn't too hard (thats macro economic stuff) and a 5 min view isn't so hard (thats trend and momentum) the tough views, and the ones that really pay to get right, are the 6 mth and 1 year views: splitting a chicken is probably as valid a method as any for that!
The interesting thing about bubbles is - everyone knows its a bubble, therefore the only value is picking the catalyst for the correction, not seeing the bubble itself! In the market there is intellectual snobbery associated with being bearish, becuase the great unwashed masses are always bullish and optimistic - i enjoy the irony of the fact that all charts basically start in the bottom left and corner and finish in the top right: therefore, the unwashed masses ploughs over the intellectual bears every time! yay the common man!
Re the question on books: a couple that i and a few others i know in the market have enjoyed; Market Wizards, there was 1 and 2 at least, this is a book of traders anecdotes as is interesting, and, Irrational Exhuberance by Robert Schiller which is an interesting look at late 1990s equity valuations.
Get into the markets, its fun! and even more fun with somebody elses money!
). he was always sitting in front of his computer and we thought he was sutudying physics articles, but once 1 of his student had discovered that actually he was visiting a stock market site! 
And I should tell you he was really rich ,although he was only 35! So yes, it might be possible and you...
. Well ok, first, I don't really know much about physics. I created this account when I was in high school and was pretty good at my AP physics class. Right now, I'm in engineering...still know some physics but not much. I recently got interested in stocks and the stock market too and got a few books. I even decided on buying a few SPY shares for now until I read up more on the stock market. If you have stock questions, post them here! I'd be happy to discuss them or learn something new from the thread. Guess what? When I first started, I downloaded a few spreadsheets of data to check for any trends...I was a bit stupid. Anyways, read a few books on the stock market, they help a lot. Also, I found "Fooled by Randomness" to be an awesome book. It won't teach you much, but the author makes some very good points (pay attention to what he says) that most 17 years old or 19 years old (me) people don't know about.
