Looking at a chart of the FTSE 100 doesn’t always tell you the real story of what has been happening in the stock market. Behind the 20 per cent plunge of the past year has been a very strong cross-current. This sector rotation has been out of banks, construction, retail and property and into a relatively small number of natural resources stocks. Such currents cannot continue indefinitely. The pivotal moment of 2008 was always likely to be when that rotation started to unwind, marking the starting gun for investors to start buying the best capitalised banks and top quality property plays, which have clearly been at once-in-a-generation prices.

I’d been watching for this moment for many months. Though I had started to make some very small buys in banks in May and June, I was holding back because I thought we would get better prices. Ironically, it is only recently when the pace of economic growth in emerging markets has given signs of flagging and we’ve seen oil prices weaken, that we could be sure that the big turn is what we are really experiencing.