I've only been investing for a couple of years. I bought $1500 worth of Intel at an avg. of $36/share thinking they were going to recover to $60 after a few years. It's blown up unexpectedly to over $100/share in a short time since buying, pulled my principle out and left the rest. Since it's not a large position I don't have specific plans for the money.
My sense of responsibility and logic is telling me to sell and redistribute into my automated account so the unexpected gains have a better chance of sticking.
However, I see a lot of investors talk about regret from selling too soon on a stock that has a second boom, and I removed my initial risk by taking out my principle.
It's a nice and unexpected problem to have, it was my first time choosing an individual stock so I'm not sure what the great investors would recommend vs. what the avg. investor does and why that might be a mistake to do, etc.