It is not too exhausting for me though I do look at the market multiple times daily to look at the trend. I do not spend excessive amounts of time studying the stock or news. I buy when the stock price has reached my target price and do likewise for selling. The effort is definitely needed to make my money work harder for me. The returns from fixed deposits can barely beat inflation. I would suggest beginners to start with ETFs. The fluctuation is not as great as individual stocks and do not require as much studying as individual stocks. You just need to know the market of interest and look up the ETFs of interest with minimal expense ratio. Only need to do this homework once a year to see if there are better ETFs but generally for US ones, the expense ratio is competitive and low. Can consider buying to average down when the price has dropped to a set percentage or simply do dollar cost averaging which requires even less effort.