Investing for the long term is not difficult. Buy your stocks using a weekly timeframe if you must. The metrics you need to look at are limited. Does the company make a profit, does it have free cashflow, is revenue growing year on year, and is management strong. Also dont get too fixated on the P/E. I often see people treating PE ratios as the holy grail of determining if a company is cheap. A slighly elevated PE is actually what I would prefer because it suggests there is momentum behind it and the stock is in demand. Its a long term game and it takes patience. So get in and, and be patient, that is the key. Jeff Bezos once asked Warren Buffett why more people do not copy his simple investing strategy, and Buffett replied that it is because his approach is a "get-rich-slowly scheme" and people do not like those.