Difficulties in gaining an advantage over others

MAKING money in the stock market is really all about trying to gain an early advantage or, to put it slightly differently, trying to figure out if a company's financials or prospects are much better than they currently appear before the rest of the market figures out the same, or trying to anticipate some market-moving news before it is actually announced.

Most of the time, there are only two ways to do this: through sheer hard work, i.e. ploughing through annual reports, company announcements and economic reports - or through insider knowledge.

For those who don't have insider access, the hard-work route may prove too daunting for some. Hence, the development of "passive" type investment products like exchange traded funds (ETFs), which mimic the performance of the main benchmarks.