[dratman]

"Predicting the future without a causal understanding of the system is epistemologically questionable."

That is an intriguing assertion, but it is circular. One can only demonstrate a causal understanding of a system by making usefully accurate predictions about the system's behavior.

To attempt that with a system consisting of market prices of tradeable securities is an exercise in frustration, because such markets do not operate by consistent, unchanging causal rules. In fact, financial markets are not systems at all in the usual sense, because their parts and connections are continually changing.