Summer’s over, kids. Mindful that September has consistently been the worst for world equities for more than a century, brokers are producing strategy reports mixing doom with equal parts gloom.

They don’t have to try hard to justify the bearishness with valuations so sun-drenched. Take Asia. On a price to book basis, shares, ex-Japan, have reached the same multiple they achieved in the third and fourth years of past recoveries, points out Citigroup. Since 1975, the compound annual return from Asian equities has been about 11 per cent; so far this year investors have made 46 per cent, or 81 per cent if you annualise it.

Profits have stabilised: consensus forecasts are for 8 per cent growth this year, following a fall of almost a third last year. But that largely reflects the severity of cost-cuts, not top line improvement. Toyota, which has cut domestic production in half so far this year, said last week it was planning to shut an assembly line for the first time in its 72-year history, following a collapse in US auto sales to the lowest level since 1976. Fears over companies’ willingness to spend in the face of subdued demand won’t be brushed off lightly.