The money that you would use for mining would be better spent on buying Bitcoin and holding it as the cost of equipment and electricity isn't cheap. From what I hear mining has become harder because more people are mining and because of that less Bitcoins are found.
Investment or buying bitcoin is the easiest way to participate in cryptocurrency. Day trading too would be possible but bitcoin market is so hard to predict this is why I think it is difficult to earn in bitcoin with trading in it.