Yes, but there are easier ways to make money trading volatility than forecasting single asset volatility. While you can fairly easily forecast volatility with R

Yes, but there are easier ways to make money trading volatility than forecasting single asset volatility. While you can fairly easily forecast volatility with R^2 higher than 60% for most assets vs 5-7% for the best models for returns, that's not the important bit. The important bit is whether you are better than the rest of the market. I would argue that implied volatility is harder to trade off a forecast than straight return because a greater proportion of the participants in the vol market are professionals, and also more likely to be highly quantitative geeks. Also my comment wasn't about being able to forecast large moves but being able to determine how much a news item was going to move an asset. As far as handling important news events and getting out of the way is concerned, options market participants are very good at it and have been for a while.