ABN-Amro suggests that investors who are prepared to take the opposite view to the market - could do well. Value is now profoundly out of fashion and solid industrial companies are being shunned in favour of information technology and telecommunications stocks, according to brokers.

Much of the depression is because fund managers have been selling the old reliables to raise cash to gain a weighting in these sectors, but this has now created an opportunity for investors. In the current market, investors are presented with a stark choice. They can either rotate into the new fashionable sectors or they can begin to pick up value in areas which are passe.

The brokers say investors are largely ignoring the mounting evidence of improvements in cyclical stocks for example, and could secure good quality stock with good long-term prospects at relatively low prices.