These questions are raised once again by this latest batch of stockmarket advisories, a set of four books which advocate everything from the slothful approach of Burton Malkiel's indexers to Peter Krass's hedge funders and options traders.
The more recent contributions in Peter Krass's collection include an essay by Warren Buffett, the famed Sage of Omaha whose investment approach, so-called focus investing, offers a third way between the indexers and active traders, and is the subject of a whole book by Robert Hagstrom.