Common sense dictates you follow world news.
Russia's stocks plunge? Looks like Russia's middle class might need a way to store value and move it throughout the country or internationally. -> Bitcoin up.
The UK eases tax regulations on income generated through Bitcoin? Might get a modest bump considering London is a financial Mecca. -> Bitcoin up.
I am a programmer myself, so it would be pretty easy, at least the way my mind works, to program a set of pre-determined conditions, and then when one of those conditions pops up in real life, send out an alert on your app (or whatever it is) that says "X is doing Y, 75% chance of breaking $700", and link users to a non-partisan news article regarding the event. Maybe create categories for prediction events:
Military, political, financial news, news within the crypto world (such as the Gox fiasco), etc.
You don't have to be an economist. Human emotion dictates this market as well as most others. I trust you will capitalize on it.
I have plenty of Bitcoin myself but I won't decline a gracious tip of exactly 1 Satoshi.
1LQBaWxcPbNDSMh42pgatkUYCL6TSYipNU
The fact that you say its pretty easy clearly means you don't know jack!
I know several jacks.
As complicated as people make it sound, writing a program as OP described is just a series of switches.
If Condition A is met, do this, else, do that.
If Condition B is met, do this, else do that.
...ad nauseum.
So it would be difficult in the sense that it is time consuming, but once you know how you want it to react, it's just academic.
