A lot of people in the investment in financial world are coming to the conclusion that very few people were actually good at investing over the past 15 years. People who made a lot of money were actually benefiting from a world where the fed pumped unfathomable amounts of money into the system, so all boats benefited from the rising tide.
My point is that we are no longer in that world, at least not for the short to medium future, so playing around in stocks is going to be a lot more like it was pre-2008, that is to say, exceptionally risky.
If you are going to take the time to become a researcher, which is possible but very time demanding, then have at it. But if not, I can't recommend enough that you find someone whose job it is to analyze the market and the companies that make it up.
That doesn't have to be a full-blown investment service that does everything for you, in fact, there are a ton of newsletters and services that give very detailed information on companies and their research. But if you are going to take someone's advice on investing in a stock(s), you need to make sure you have access to their advice consistently, because buy and hold as an investment strategy might be at the end of its life, at least until the next money printing cycle.
Personally, I use hedge fund telemetry. The guy used to run a hedge fund, now he just runs this service, but he sends out three notes a day with detailed information, and it's very easy to follow along with your own portfolio. Though he does a lot of short selling as well, you can decide how much of that to participate in. I also use uranium insider because a big part of my investment strategy is based on my prediction that nuclear is going to come back in a big way.
Ultimately, I think the best way is to find an investment advisor who shares your thesis about what the broader economy is going to do. Because at the end of the day, some people are going to be right and a lot of others are going to be wrong, and those people are going to lose money. You can't outsource the ultimate decision of what type of portfolio posture you want to maintain. I believe that bad times are ahead, and so the service I subscribed to is one that shares that sentiment.
Happy hunting