Lots of investors have sworn off stocks, saying they would rather stuff cash inside a mattress or invest in T-bills, where the yield is a tiny bit better. But they'll be back. They'll all be back, eventually. For many, though, it will be years before they venture into stocks again. And that's too bad, given the opportunities in the current market.

No other asset class can hold a candle to stocks. Stocks don't beat every other category by a whisker or two. The long-term performance gap is wider than the Grand Canyon: Stocks outperform, by double or more, all other asset classes. If you insist on avoiding stocks, remember to come back sometime this century. If the market compounds in this century at the same rate as in the last one, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will eclipse 2,000,000 in the next 91 years.

The metaphorical formula is this: Berlin Wall plus computer, or the opening up of the world plus the massive efficiency gains that inure from new technologies. Despite temporary problems in the financial system, this long-term thesis hasn't changed one whit.