Investing $5,000 in the stock market can be a significant amount of money if you keep it invested for the very long haul. Suppose you find a good growth stock that rises by an average of 15% over a period of 30 years. In that case, your $5,000 investment would grow to be worth more than $330,000.

By no means is every investment going to deliver those types of returns. But it's an important reminder that finding a good growth stock and piling some money into it can lead to some significant gains for long-term investors; it isn't just about finding which hot stock to buy right now that has the potential to double your money within a short time frame. For truly large, life-changing gains, you'll want to invest for the long haul.

And one way to potentially maximize your long-run returns is by targeting stocks that are cheap and that you can buy at steep discounts right now. Three stocks you may want to consider investing $5,000 or more in today are Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), and Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU).

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Source Fool.com