While many investors fret about the inevitable correction in the stock market, I'm actually hoping the markets drop in the next few months.

Have I finally gone off the deep end, having spent a little too much time in front of my computer screen? Have I shorted the entire market? Not at all. The reason that I'm rooting for the markets to take a good beating in the short-term is that I'm planning to invest again in June, the annual date of turnover for my Beating the Dow and Beating the S&P portfolios.

Since I am certain to buy more stocks in the near future, why not obtain them at a bargain rather than pay a higher price? I'll likely be adding to my holdings of Chrysler and AT&T, so why not purchase even more shares at that time for the same investment dollar? This logic works even better for stocks that I may never sell, unlike most of the Beating the Dow stocks. For instance, last year I bought Intel and Cisco Systems (Note: I don't brag about my losers). They're two of my "buy for the long haul and almost never sell" stocks. When I contemplate buying more of these companies today as I earn additional money with which to invest, I salivate at the prices I paid last year. Sixty-four dollars a share last year for Intel! It will now set me back about $150 a share if I want to buy some more. How about a nice little "correction," folks, so I can pick up some more at better prices?

It doesn't really matter if the market falls or rises each year, but rather where it ends up when you cash in your chips. If the market gains 11% a year on the average (roughly its long-term record) and you intend to keep investing regularly, it is to your benefit if the market drops and stays low for much of your investment life-span.

Let's take an example. Suppose you have $5000 to invest and you intend to add $2000 per year, each and every year, starting today. If you achieve the stock market's long-term average rate of return of 11%, at the end of 10 years your portfolio will be worth about $51,000 with a total investment of $25,000. Congratulations, you've put the compounding clown to work for you again.

But what if the market takes a prolonged dive, just after you start to invest? Let's say the first three years it loses 10% each year. Far from being a catastrophe, you will actually come out better in this scenario, assuming the market's overall return for the decade remains at 11% annually. Your portfolio at the end of the decade will be worth about $15,000 more than with the first scenario, totaling about $66,000 for the same $25,000 investment!

How does this work? If the market returns 11% annually on average for the decade, but loses 10% in each of the first three years, it will gain over 21% annually for the last seven years. Since you have additional cash to invest regularly throughout the investment period, the money invested early on takes full advantage of those later 21% returns. You've bought stock at relative bargain prices during those early years. Of course, not everyone will benefit equally from a market correction. In general, a longer investment time-frame and a higher percentage of future investment dollars compared to total investment dollars will enable one to take maximum advantage of such a market-tumbling scenario.

So when Chicken Little frantically comes to me with dire warnings that the sky is about to fall, I'll just say, "Great! When it hits the ground let me know so I can hop on and enjoy that fantastic ride back up to the heavens."

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