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The stock market is informationally efficient. It reflects nearly all available public information in stock prices. You have an opportunity to know about the company and the stock price as much as anybody else can legally. For beginner investors, selecting broadly diversified ETFs with low costs is probably the best way to start investing. Eugene F. Fama won Noble Prize in Economics for his work on the efficient market hypothesis. According to Fama, the stock prices fully reflect all available information if the following conditions are met: 

According to Fama, markets may still be efficient even if the sufficient number of investors meet the above three conditions (Fama 1970). Fama showed that the financial markets may fully reflect past prices and return history, and publicly available information. It is highly unlikely that past price data may predict future stock performance consistently and with high enough profitability margin. Only monopolistic access to information may not be reflected in stock prices. The example of such information is the specialist’s confidential book information about submitted limit orders to buy and sell stock (Fama 1970). The specialist’s book information is material and nonpublic. Retail and institutional investors do not have the monopolistic access to information.

            However, it is possible to have information which is not immediately reflected in the stock prices. According to Fama, there can be informational signals that are not immediately accepted by the stock market. In this case, the future value will be higher than present value. It is the analyst’s job to interpret information correctly and take advantage of investment opportunities over time.  

In the long run, the stock market may provide an opportunity to profit. If you are willing to do the homework and learn financial statement analysis and economics, you may try to outperform the market by selecting individual securities. One way to do that is to interpret information correctly and define information which is not currently reflected in the stock price. When you discount the future information to present time, you can compare your target price with the market price. If your target price is significantly higher than the market price, you may decide to purchase this security. After the purchase, you will have to wait for the market to realize what you have forecasted. If your predictions are correct, the future stock price will move closer to your target price. Here are some of the risks in trying to outperform the market:

References:

Fama Eugene F. Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work. The Journal of Finance, Vol. 25, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Finance Association New York, N.Y. December, 28-30, 1969 (May, 1970), pp. 383-417

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