A 46% plunge in the value of world stock markets this year has convinced many investors that equities are now too cheap to miss, a quarterly survey of fund managers by the bank HSBC suggests. Half of the investors, who control about 17% of all the world's professionally-managed money, are now overweight equities.

Only 22% of the fund managers viewed equities positively during HSBC's last survey, conducted in the third quarter. Bruno Lee, HSBC's head of wealth management in Hong Kong where the survey was collated, said this had changed because managers now think some of the world's biggest markets are too cheap.