Many investment advisers have reported this past fortnight that their clients are keeping their nerves and avoiding the kind of panic selling of stocks that was so prevalent back in 1987 and 1991.

Typically, advisers are saying that their clients "have lived through this before and have seen values come back" and "there is a greater understanding of how the markets work", or "people realise that equities are longer term investments".

However, ordinary investors do not appear to be buying much. "That's not such a bad thing, even though a lot of brokers have been quoted as saying that there are bargains to be had," said one adviser. "It is very hard to know if the markets are going to drop much further - you might still be buying in high. You really need nerves of steel to play a falling market. Ordinary people are probably better off looking at more secure equity investments like with-profit bonds. And then forget about it for at least five years."

Investment club activity has also been curtailed, according to stockbrokers, but new clubs just setting up and still in the process of putting their pool of funds together are in the ideal position to watch how the market plays out over the next couple of months.

"Little clubs like these usually take a few months to get a few thousand pounds together," one broker told Family Money. "By the end of the year, if the markets haven't already rallied, they may be able to pick up some blue-chip stocks at real bargain prices."