Technology outfit Intel (INTC -3.67%) isn't quite the shining star it was back when the personal computer industry was young. It's also suffered more than its fair share of research and development headaches since then.

Still, this stock continues to log market-beating (even if erratic) gains. Shares are up a little over 830% since July 1994. A $5,000 investment in Intel then would be worth just a little more than $46,600 today. And that's not counting the modest dividends also dished out during this time.

Those numbers come with an important footnote, however: Shares haven't actually provided any gains to long-term investors who stepped in when Intel stock was its most attractive.

Intel stock is (very) hot and cold

Intel stock may be up 830% for the past 30 years. All of that net gain, however, took shape prior to the dot-com mania of the late 1990s. As of right now, shares are priced right where they were in July 1999, pulling back from the rally between then and the late-2000s crash.

And yet it's not as if Intel hasn't served up lots of opportunity for long-term investors in the meantime. Although the stock performed poorly all the way through the end of 2008's subprime mortgage meltdown, shares rallied more than 460% from their March 2009 low to their early 2020 peak. The stock's simply been cut roughly in half again in the meantime.

These ebbs and flows simply reflect Intel's volatile results and investors' ever-changing perceptions of its growth prospects.

Every stock's got its own unique personality

There's a lesson to be learned here: While all investors should think long-term, they should also recognize that not every "good" stock is necessarily a compelling buy-and-hold pick. Some stocks -- just due to the nature of the underlying company's business -- could prove more productive as a cyclical investment rather than a lifelong holding.

Nevertheless, nobody can afford to forget this truth: Identifying a stock's major turning points is difficult, if not impossible. Buying and holding less-cyclical and less-volatile names is a viable option too.