I think it is a bit malicious since there is no price discovery happening (and price discovery is the primary purpose of a market) and the trades are not based

I think it is a bit malicious since there is no price discovery happening (and price discovery is the primary purpose of a market) and the trades are not based on any information at all, but we can disagree on what to call it. I do agree on the difficulty of knowing why prices move and the fact that other participants may have some knowledge I do not, and would even argue that it is probably more pronounced in the commodities market than the stock market because of insider trading rules and disclosure requirements.