The markets, which had looked to be edging back toward historical valuation levels, closed down nearly 2.5% across the board Friday, Sept. 2 on poor jobs data, and I don’t mean Steve.

The Labor Department threw cold water on what had looked like a decent week when it pegged the nation’s unemployment rate at 9.1%. That’s resolutely lousy by any standard, and a lot of pundits have gone a step further and pointed out the rate would be much, much higher but for all the people who have given up the search for work.

So there’s that. It’s bad news, it’s serious, and there’s no making light of the very real problems this poses for our country and for the equally difficult situations faced by many of our friends, neighbors and loved ones.

The market also is reacting to a “first,” and, not surprisingly, it’s also not a good one.

For the first time, the jobs report cited net job creation of precisely — zero. In a healthy economy, net job creation should be at about 125,000, just to keep up with the nation’s normal pace of growth. Five or ten thousand or even 50,000 net new jobs is anemic, but it’s something. A zero is pretty bad news, and it sits there, indisputable, as evidence the economy is in tatters, confidence is shot, and the outlook is dark.

Of the half-dozen or so news reports I have watched, many considered the possibility this is the “New Normal,” a Europe-like baseline of high unemployment, high taxes, huge government spending and negligible growth.

Oh, boy.

It’s time, in the words of the noted Buddhist philosopher Ice Cube, to “check yourself before you wreck yourself.” 
Here are some things to keep in mind before you execute in the coming days…
The economy and the market are both dynamic and cyclical.

Labor Department data show the last time joblessness reached this level in the United States was November 1981, when the unemployment rate inched above 8%, to 8.3%. By March 1982, it was 9.0% and in September 1982 it hit 10%, where it hovered for 10 agonizing months. The unemployment rate did not fall back below 8.0% until February 1984, some 28 months later.

The country now has had a joblessness rate above 8% for 21 months, since May 2009. No one is predicting it will drop below 8% any time soon. Indeed, the White House, which has a rather strong interest in putting forth the best-case scenario — says it sees the rate at 9% through 2012. That is not a “new normal,” it’s the nation’s collective commentary on our expectations for the future. Call it a “politicostatistical” anomaly, a term I just made up but that seems to hit the nail on the head.

In any case, what happened next in the early 1980s unemployment scenario is far more important: Unemployment started to drop, growth took off, and the economy went nuts. The boom lasted until the jobless rate again approached 8% in June 1992. During that time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from 1,212.31 to 3,413.21, a gain of 181%, which equates to a nearly 15% annual clip — 50% faster than the index‘s long-term average.

My point is that, at this point, investors shouldn’t be worriedly focused on the fact that unemployment is high. They should focus instead on the inevitable notion that periods of sustained unemployment are followed by extended periods of robust prosperity. When things get bad, they get better. And stay that way. Just as the Reagan boom lasted nearly a decade, so too did prosperity return after the brief recession and jobless surge in the early 1990s.

But while the long-term macroeconomic — that is, the “big picture” — trends are indeed favorable, it’s worthwhile to point out the folly of any investor who makes a buy or sell decisions based based on the monthly showing of any economic indicator. This is a simply ridiculous notion, like choosing what you’re going to wear next weekend on your trip to Bermuda based on last month’s forecast of the weather in Cleveland. These data points might set the mood on Wall Street, but what matters the most is the mood on your street, where you will make your (hopefully wiser) investment decisions. These decisions are microeconomic — that is, small picture — in nature. After all, when you buy a stock, you aren’t buying the overall economy and you aren’t buying the overall market, which is what indicators track. You are buying a share of the future of one company.

That is very, very good news.

I say this because innovation refuses to be held captive by recession. Game-changing creative destruction will not be hemmed-in by flagging consumer confidence. The Next Big Thing doesn’t give two beanstalk beans what the unemployment rate is.

And think about what some of those companies are doing right now. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is making iPads, which have now become the fastest-adopted consumer technology, outpacing the DVD player. Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) is making medical devices that leverage the latest technology to better people’s lives. Monsanto (NYSE: MON) is developing seeds that are drought and pest-resistant. Those are three companies you probably know about — that you might hear about on the business news channels.

But there are others.

Right now, a company is using microalgae to literally grow oil that can be refined into gasoline. The federal government just made $510 million available to spur the technology along. By the time the unemployment level returns to historic norms, we might well be exporting algae-based oil, and we certainly will be consuming it.

Another outfit is leading the charge — if you’ll pardon the expression — to enable new forms of payment. Forget your wallet? Just use your phone instead. Hundreds of billions of transactions will be processed this way before the unemployment rate falls back to earth. In the meantime, an obscure but highly profitable equipment maker stands poised to rake in billions of dollars selling the special components our phones will need to make these transactions possible.

A handful of companies have written software that will let doctors and medical personnel share patient information over completely digital networks. Every hospital and medical clinic, every doctor’s office and diagnostic center, every ER and outpatient surgical center must comply. Hospitals alone will spend $100 billion on these programs. Can you name the leading players in the industry? By 2015, when the deadline for the transition to digital medical records is complete, these companies likely will have delivered fantastic returns to their shareholders.

Each of these three companies, incidentally, is well-known to readers of my Fast-Track Millionaire letter. Each month, I focus not on the nuances of the economy, but on the details of the companies ushering in the future. I leave no stone unturned in my search for the ten-bagger stocks with the potential to move the needle on your overall portfolio. It only takes one big winner. While the rest of the world is fretting over “politicostatistics,” I’m looking for stocks with quadruple-digit return potential.