Difficulties in gaining an advantage over others
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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.
