The extraordinary ability of the financial services industry to flog funds right at the top of the market is thrown into sharp relief by our review of the past decade.
In 1999, everyone piled into tech funds at what turned out to be the peak: the two worst-performing unit trusts of the past 10 years are Axa Framlington Global Technology, down 72%, and New Star Technology, down 70%.
You would have been hard-pressed to find an adviser recommending Russia, given the country had defaulted on its debts and suffered a currency crisis a year earlier. Yet the JP Morgan Russian Securities investment trust is the best-performing fund of the decade, with a 935% return to the end of last month.
Given some of the world's best investors, including Warren Buffett and Anthony Bolton, have delivered above-average returns by going against the crowd, the lesson is surely that it can pay to do the opposite of everyone else.
So where is the herd heading now? Emerging markets are the top tip for 2010 as well as the next decade, on the basis that China can come to the rescue of the ailing West.
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While China's economic story is undoubtedly powerful, I can't get excited about a sector that has returned more than 70% over the past 12 months. Even Mark Dampier at Hargreaves Lansdown, a long-time proponent of emerging markets, is worried. "In a year or so, we might find emerging markets are overheated, which could be a signal to switch back to the developed world," he said.
Which brings me to the one developed market that nobody is talking about: Japan. The Nikkei 225 peaked at nearly 40,000 in 1989 and is still hovering around 10,000.
That is why contrarians are taking a look. Peter Lucas, investment strategist at RBC Wealth Management, said: "As much as Japan was hailed as the all-conquering hero in 1989, it is now decried as the ultimate value trap - a cheap market that is destined to remain that way for a very long time. It is just this sort of situation that gets my contrarian antennae twitching."
Yes Japan's debts are 200% of the size of its economy but the country has significant public assets that could be privatised to reduce the deficit, according to Lucas.
The market is also dirt cheap, trading at book value (the value of underlying company assets) when most other global markets trade at two or three times that.
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However, I still prefer the US among developed markets. The West, led by America, has been written off in the wake of the credit crisis and everyone is talking about the death of the dollar, giving the greenback ample scope to surprise the doubters next year - which would give UK investors in North American funds a double boost. US funds are also a great way into the other contrarian tip for the next decade: technology. Dampier recommends the Legg Mason Value fund or the GLG Technology fund.
Kathryn Cooper is editor of the Money section