Spotting the first green shoots of recovery has become a preoccupation of investment managers. Kevin Lecocq, chief investment officer at Barclays Wealth, is cautious, describing the current situation as one in which “things have stopped getting worse”.

He believes policymakers have taken the steps needed to prevent a 1930s-style depression and that the steep fall in consumer-led demand has been flattening out, even if this has yet to show up in increases in production. “Markets have started to calm down and price in recovery in 2010,” he says. “We were in the bunker in the autumn, but in spring we started moving up the risk curve.”