Randomness!
There are some super smart guys on this forum who think they can predict coins like LTC due to actual facts. It's almost hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. The truth is 90% of big moves are irrational and based on intangible human moods and whims.
I've made more money than most simply sticking my finger in the air and testing the mood, often being contrarian rather than following the crowd. But seriously logic is the last thing you want to follow.
The movement of the market can be described in first approximation by a random walk, but there is a tiny fraction (let's say 1% of the total volume) of the movement that can be predicted with a certain level of accuracy. That's how hedge fund make a lot of money. Of course they are still probabilistic models, so the gain comes as a result of many trading operations over time.