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It's important to remember that this doesn't mean the stock market returns exactly 10% a year, every year. It's actually unusual for the market to return exactly 10% in a given year. The S&P 500 has only posted a return of between 10.0% and 10.9% four times since 1926 and only returned exactly 10% once, in 1966, according to S&P data that includes dividends.

Stock returns are wild and unpredictable. Since 1927, the S&P 500 stock index has gained 10.4% a year on average. But in any given year it could be up 29.9% or down 9.0% or somewhere in between, says IFA.com.

To do that, it's important to understand the power of diversification and the benefits of owning many types of stocks, from large value-priced stocks to small value-priced stocks. Diversification lets you minimize the risk posed by a single stock or type of stock and lets you still get your share of the market's return.

Analysts say that at the start of trading, the stock markets fell because a lot of investors were cashing in, but later in the day, the reason the stock markets kept on falling was because traders began to have reservations about the impact of an Obama administration on the business sector.

The stocks also fell because investors were concerned about the business impact of the expected release of a government report on lost jobs, repo homes and foreclosed properties for the month of October.

Yes, Yahoo is losing share to Google. Yes, Yahoo is barely growing. Yes, it's a tired argument that Yahoo is one of the strongest brands in the media world. Yes, this argument for owning its stock hasn't worked in a long time.

It's cheap. There's always that. Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker figures that given the value of Yahoo's cash and its publicly traded Asian assets (even taking into account the difficulty in selling stakes in other companies), investors value Yahoo's core business at just $6 per share, or eight times Wall Street's estimates of 2009 profits. That's an extraordinarily low multiple for any company with the opportunities in front of it that Yahoo has. Yahoo's management thought Yahoo was cheap at $30, of course. Today, investors would do quite nicely for a fraction of that amount. 

Interestingly enough, stock prices suggest the opposite. We haven't sold off like this since the Depression. Even during the inflation crisis of the 1970's, the most we ever sold off was 17%. Being down 40% on the year must be very scary for market bears. Everyone wants to tell you that valuations don't matter but I have a secret for you - they do. It's hard to find a stock with a p/e over 20 anymore. Apple's market cap is down to $79 billion and yet it will have $30 billion in cash on its balance sheet by year end.Apple's not the only one either. Corporate America has never been more fiscally responsible. Record amounts of cash sit on balance sheets across many different sectors. Leverage has been limited to consumers and banks.

Outstanding credit card debt sits at $971 billion for the United States. This amounts to approximately $3,000 per person. This problem is nowhere near the problems that we were faced with earlier in the year in the financial sector. Government stimulus can easily fix the problem of consumer leverage. With a shot of confidence, the consumer will prove resilient once again.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) moved down nearly 4%, probably based on the Nokia news. Since both PC and handset sales are weak, Apple has some real exposure.

Research from the music video game industry showed slow sales and Electronic Arts, Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) took big tumbles.

Make sure your money is as safe as possible.

The reasons are partly technical, but the bottom line is that this asset class is perhaps the most compelling investment opportunity in today's marketplace. I expect equitylike returns, well into double digits, over the next year or two. And everyday investors can easily target these bonds with mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.