Re: Idiot wants advice.
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I wish people would stop recommending the S&P 500 index when there are many better-diversified indices available at the same low expense ratios.
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"Better diversified" needs some defining. Studies have shown that once you've got more than 20 stocks in your portfolio, you're pretty far down the road to total diversification. After 30 or so the incremental diversification really falls off.
5000 is probably better diversified than 500 in an absolute sense, but I wouldn't worry too much about diversifying away 99.999% of risk over 99.99%. It doesn't really make a difference, and for the extremely casual investor its easy to flip over to CNBC or whatever and see what the S&P did.
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