One sterling example of what makes a great trader came when he was woken up to news of Chernobyl. Like most people aware of the disaster, he was thinking in terms of fear, long term effects of radiation and nuclear anxiety. His trader friend called him with a tip to buy potatoes. He called back to say also diapers.
The trader correctly identified market trends in reaction to both nuclear radiation on global food stocks, and human behavior aggregates to nuclear anxiety (which in 9 months leads to higher demand for diapers).
It's a state of mind not entirely human, but understanding human behavior.
Is this real? Similar claims were made about a baby bump around June 2002 (9 months after 9/11), but nothing happened [1].
The host has a libertarian bias but is pretty upfront about it so you know where he's coming from. I don't agree with him on everything but his podcast is almost always interesting.