Shah: Now is time to own banks

The UK economy faces a choppy ride for the rest of 2011 and may be in for a tough few years, though without falling back into recession.

With the UK stock market just fairly valued overall following the strong run from early 2009, this is an environment which I am confident will favour a stockpicking investor. As a contrarian value-driven fund manager I seek out significant valuation anomalies in sectors and shares which are not only cheap, but are also unloved and unfashionable. I continue to find such opportunities on a stock-specific basis across a range of sectors in the UK market. An area in which I have taken a non-consensus position has been the financial sector. In the wake of the financial crisis, valuations a...