Over the long run this is the cheapest option, it s a very well known fact that relying on another person to make your trades on the markets does not work, the majority of the money managers cannot outperform the market and then you need to pay them fees for their work, meaning that you could have been better of just buying the asset you wanted and then just hold it for as long as you could, so if you want to obtain more money than what holding can give you then there is no other alternative than to learn and do so on your own.