<prompt> Human: I dont own any individual stocks, just index funds in my 401k and Roth IRA. The Coursera course on personal finance this week focuses on investing, and Ive only done the reading so far via Motley Fool.The recommendation there is the typical buy-and-hold strategy we love, but they also recommend putting money into individual stocks too. I guess this makes investing a much more personal experience for us.Suppose I do buy individual stocks. Doesnt matter what or how or why, just suppose I do. How is that stock considered in my total asset allocation? I always thought that buying individual stocks should be considered gambling with fun-money and I ought to expect to lose all of it in the end. But I wanted to get rpfs opinion and some discussion about owning individual stocks.  <response>: Treat individual stocks as part of your equity holdings as far as equity vs bonds, and diversify within equities as you are otherwise inclined to. That said, issuing a general recommendation of putting money in individual stocks is bad and Coursera should feel bad.The slightly longer version: if you arent educated enough as an individual to know what youre looking for and why, and to know how to read a companys financial reports and the surrounding news to get a good sense of whether or not its worth investing in, then you have no business buying individual stocks. You dont buy individual stocks to gamble, you buy them if you understand the numbers and are convinced the numbers make sense. Investing is math, not emotion. 