The stock market has "crashed" as of late and this has sent many investors scrambling for the exits. So many people have seen the slumping economy and thought to themselves that the world was coming to an end. This fear has caused the market to fall far lower than it ever should have and know is the opportunity to cash in on other peoples irrational behavior.

Now don't get me wrong - the stock market should have gone down. The financial system has some major problems and the economy as a whole has faced some struggles. But the market has gone done close to 50% - a far larger drop than the economic factors should have caused.

Think about it - is a company such as General Electric really worth 75% less than it was a year ago? Of course not! Not enough has changed in their business model to warrant such a drop. Sure, economic times will lower their sales and their cost of borrowing is a little higher, but this doesn't mean they are all of a sudden worth only 25% of what they were one year ago.

Fear and emotional responses of investors play a massive role in stock prices. The term "herding" refers to a group of people simply following the masses and acting in the way others are. This is exactly what has happened in the stock market.

People have read horror story after horror story about the markets and seen other selling and have simple followed the crowd. This selling pressure has resulted in a far larger drop than what should have ever happened.

Here's the good news though - you can know jump in the stock market and take advantage of this mispricing. In recent times, the markets have been experiencing slow upward growth and although there is pessimism that remains, the fear and mass selling is no longer playing the same role. This points to the bottom of the downswing.

Now's the perfect time to catch the markets and profit from their upswing. Gradually, positive ecomonic news is being released and the markets need to rebound and correct the mispricing that this fear has caused. If you get in now, you will catch it at the perfect time. And it's very likely that the opposite will occur - investors will be overly excited about the rebound which will cause an even greater upswing.

Bottom line, don't be cautious to invest in stocks! This is truly a "once in a lifetime" opportunity that will make you a tidy profit if you take action.