EVE New Citizens Q&A

1. They do. But speculation is tricky as prices for various things can be affected on factors wholly outside of the system (see: ship/module rebalances, loot table tweaks, meta-gaming, etc).
And the DEVs do not reimburse bad speculation or investments... even if they are root the cause of it.

2. They do. But again... "crystal balling" when and where things might happen is tricky as some factors that feed into this also reside outside of the game (see: player egos butting heads, someone misclicks something and puts valuable assets at risk, etc).
Then again... you can perhaps engineer a war by running statistics and probabilities (see: you can create a self-fulfilling prophecy).

1. "CARE" has a variable definition. Most market players either react or are good enough to set the prices up ahead of time. Those of us that actually buy the stuff look for the best deals we can get within range of our play areas. A few thousand ISK one way or the other isn't going to slam the brakes on any of our activities. So, 'care' fluctuates on who you are and what you are doing.

2. Yes, wars have large impacts on regions of space. Everything adjusts in and around those regions. Wars are great for the builders, it puts high demand on products and services. The losers of the war are the ones that really end up paying for all of it. The winners can at least claim more space, the losers paid a ton of ISK and got nothing out of it. So yes, the players care about wars... a great deal, but again, 'CARE' is situational to the players as to how much...