Ahh, but "History always repeats itself" - don't have a clue who said it.

In the stock market there are a lot of people who make money based on following rules developed around trends, etc (technical analysis as opposed to fundamental analysis). These rules are based on historical analysis of trends and do work (well some of them work anyway - I personally know one person who was making a good income this way until the stress started getting to them).

There is no doubt it is possible to develop a system based on past results BUT there are a few things to remember:

1. You have to do it yourself - buying a system will never work because once a few people start using the same system it will stop working.
2. The rules you come up with must work consistantly month after month (no good coming up with something that shows a huge profit 1 month but losses the rest of the time). If you can find rules that show profits for at least 90% of the time in the past (with several years data) then there is a very good chance it will continue to work in the future.
3. The rules should be as simple as possible - eg. bet on dead or better tracks only is OK - bet on heavy if it is first Monday of month is NOT (this is a specific rule to fit past data)
4. If you come up with a system that works DO NOT SELL IT - you will make more money using it yourself!