predictability of market volatility

Financial markets in the recent times have foxed the pundits. Volatility is a given, and predictabilty is zero, leaving one to wonder if there is such a thing as a financial pundit. There are so many variables ranging from Icelandic ash to Greek tragedies to senate hearings, to UK elections to the Yuan valuation theories, to almost any financial and non financial behaviour of market players that effect markets all over the world, that it is naive to believe that anybody can predict the future price of an individual security or market.
I read almost all the financial dailies and am a CNBC addict and the confidence with which analysts are making buy, sell or hold recommendations amazes me. I suppose it is easier to make these recommendations with other peoples money and with no responsibility. or skin in the game.
To make matters worse we all suffer from selective memories when it comes to evaluating portfolio performance. The losses that we avoided by not following advice are ignored and the gains and losses arising out of following the same are overweighted.
It seems obvious to me that for for every gain made someone somewhere has to have lost and the overall stock market or bond market is a zero sum game. In fact if you take out the transaction costs charged by he exchange and the intermediaries , the markets are a negative sum game, whether you are long or short over a long period of time.
The only thing certain is the current price. How that price will behave in the future, how much it will change up or down and by how much are pretty much a matter of chance, and nobody has privileged information on that, much as they pretend to fool you with jargon, quantum theory, string theory or random theory. Fact is your maid or driver or your teenaged daughter can make as good a prediction and there is a good chance that they will be right 50% of the time, which is better track record than the so called professional view.
Some of my friends consider me a financial genius and often ask me for stock market tips. The only advice I can give them with confidence is to buy low and sell high. That invariably works.