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IMO, as with any other market, security prices only change due to an imbalance of supply and demand. MMs are just middle-men between buyers and sellers, earning a commission through the spread. As the OP said, "MMs hedge their bets" so it doesn't matter to them whether prices go up or down.

It was driven by news. "Aviva was the highest riser just before close on Wednesday, after the Budget saw the chancellor reduce the tax advantages of buy-to-let by capping mortgage interest cost relief at the basic rate, which some analysts argued may be positive for retail investment...

I may be wrong but I wouldn't have thought MMs had much effect on price. They make their money in the bid-ask spread, so I would have thought they'd be broadly neutral. I was watching a top FTSE-100 stock a couple of weeks ago, with a market cap of £21Bn, and it jumped 10% in a couple of days...

I was sure that's what you meant. It's just that, to me at least, your post didn't read like that. Incidentally, do you know who (or what) the Generals are?

I presume you meant "are competing"? If you read the hard-luck stories link I posted earlier, it's clear that's exactly what many of these people were doing. Trying to buck the trend, not realising who they were competing against.

I am currently thinking about how to exploit the Obvious, and that's not so obvious. What I do recognise, though, is it's no use whatsoever me trading ever again unless I can figure this out. PS. I gained quite a lot of insight reading these hard-luck stories about trading...

When I first stumbled across this thread I assumed the Obvious was something to do with the mechanics of trading. The OP said that, on their own, risk management and position sizing were of no use. Many of the early replies said "having an edge", which is how I would have answered, but the OP...

(Last session of talking to myself for a while) 3 words - no use whatsoever 4 words - no use what soever

My shrink warned me about that :D

It may help to go back to basics. http://www.economicstutor.com.au/page36.html

Step 1: Research

Time is important in several ways but do you think this is the obvious pre-requisite to trading any market that the OP was alluding to?

This contains the answer I would give to the OP's question. http://www.nmtf.co.uk/files/NMTF_Market_Trader_Start-Up_Guide.pdf

Apparently, it is what every trader has to realise.

2,3,10 (or 2,3,4,6)

To quote the OP:

3 words or 4 words. What is the obvious pre-requisite to trading any market (be it stocks, commodities, currencies or widgets)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_(economics)

Yes, the opportunity cost.

You can if you like because it should be obvious to everyone I'm not The Oracle. If you mean the "Why" then yes.