"I know a guy who told me he'd bought into speculative stock for...

"I know a guy who told me he'd bought into speculative stock for 15 cents a share. Then he forgot all about it for a few years. They are now going for $6 a share so he made an absolute fortune. But he has been trading for 16 years and knows his stuff."

We all hear these stories. The fabled "ten-baggers", stuff of dreams, holidays, happy life, lotteries, new cars etc.

In practice, many more companies also go broke, meaning you lose your money.

Any trader worth their salt will have a trading plan involving stoplosses, research, FA, TA, more research, risk:reward ratios just to name a few issues.

Any decent trader in speccies will have had quite a few ten-baggers. They will not "forget about a stock" or "put it in the bottom drawer." They will continually monitor where a stock is performing, should their money be deployed elsewhere etc. Average up in the winners, cut the losers. Then, you need to take some money off the table.

The bottom drawer is an excuse for failing to be stopped out of a stock and keep on holding losers.

As to your question, how much of your 5k are you going to risk? Are you short, medium or long term.

A share will do one of three things after you buy it, go down, go sideways or go up. Anyone can buy in on a stock, what counts is when you sell.