If you buy individual stocks, you really should be following that business and be aware when there might be trouble ahead. I would hate having to follow stock prices. I invested in a few Mutual Funds where the fund managers have a large "basket" of individual stocks. You can buy these Mutual Funds and just let the manager worry about which stocks to buy or sell. I did pretty good, especially compared to my money in my savings account which has been giving me less than one percent interest per year.