This has been an eventful year for the markets, and a number of investors and money managers will be eager to put 2010 behind them. Although major indexes such as the S&P 500 have finished the year in positive territory, the past 12 months have brought two significant rallies and three corrections. That’s huge volatility.

Many investors who use market-timing strategies have had their hats handed to them. The markets have swung to some of their biggest one-day moves in recent history–both on the upside and downside.

Perhaps the best lesson that we can take away from 2010 is that, despite prognostications to the contrary in 2009, buy-and-hold investing isn’t dead. If you bought shares of an S&P 500 index fund at the beginning of 2010, you’ve suffered your share of ups and downs, but you’ll most likely finish the year with a gain of about 8 percent.

On the other hand, if you were attempting to time the markets and your entry and exit points weren’t spot on, your portfolio performance likely will be flat. The professionals haven’t fared much better; the average long-short mutual fund returned only about 2 percent in 2010.

If you didn’t take on some measure of risk, your returns might be worse. The average one-year certificate of deposit yielded about 1.25 percent. On a total-return basis, the profits on the average money market fund gained just 0.03 percent.

But 2010 wasn’t a year for investors to sit on the sidelines. Precious metals and long government bonds–classic defensive instruments–returned 29.6 percent and 17.6 percent, respectively.

That’s no surprise given the string of crises that roiled markets this summer. None of these scares amounted to John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the bombing of Pear Harbor, but I remember where I was when the bad news hit.

For example, when concerns about Europe’s sovereign debt crisis reached a fever pitch, I watched the market plunge while attending an investment conference in Orlando. Although the response of the EU and at-risk nations eventually alleviated concerns that this weakness would cripple global credit markets, the stock market endured its fair share of pain.

A few months after this disaster was averted, the May 6 Flash Crash shook investors’ confidence in the systems underpinning the market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 600 points in almost 20 minutes after a trader executed an unusually large sell order on S&P 500 E-Mini futures contracts. This sent the broad market into a tailspin. I was sitting in the press box at the annual Investment Company Institute meeting that day and watched the market plunge on my laptop.

Perhaps the real lesson of these two crises is that I shouldn’t attend conferences. What’s more likely is that investors still haven’t quite recovered from the shock of the 2008-09 market implosion, a traumatic experience that has left everyone on edge.

As we come upon the year’s end, problems remain.

Ireland has accepted a $100 billion bailout package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the full scope of its banking crisis continues to come to light. China has bumped up domestic interest rates to curb growing inflationary pressures. Futures exchanges in the US and Europe boosted margin requirements in an attempt to curb speculation in commodities markets.

Despite these storm clouds, I suspect 2011 will bring gladder tidings as global growth continues to recover despite isolated pockets of concern.

Although global gross domestic product (GDP) growth should slow to about 4 percent, that’s better than no growth. As always, there will be areas of outperformance. Slow growth will likely be a fact of life for the developed world as consumers save more and spend less, but emerging markets should continue to thrive.

According to the IMF, China’s GDP should grow by about 10 percent in 2011. India’s growth should clock in at about 8 percent and Brazil should post growth in the neighborhood of 6 percent. Much of this economic expansion will be driven by consumers in emerging markets, who should enjoy growing spending power. A second round of quantitative easing in the US will almost surely result in huge outflows of money to emerging markets and commodities: as cheap capital seeks out markets with the best prospects for growth.

Investors will have to pick their spots next year; broad growth in developing markets seems unlikely. But no one will want to throw in the towel in 2011.

As we detail in this month’s Growth & Income profile, even conservative investors can get into the international game and realize a higher yield than those currently offered by many bond funds.

And as I write about on page 9, there are even opportunities for investors to take advantage of the current instability in Mediterranean countries and their banks. This is a good time to establish positions in regions and industries that should improve next year.

Students of history can take comfort in this fact: While financial crises tend to run longer and deeper than typical market cycles, no crisis lasts forever. The past few years have been challenging for everyone. But the upside is more sustainable global growth model that isn’t based on exploding consumer debt.

We’re far from resolving all the problems in the global economy. But sitting out 2011 isn’t a solution.