What goes down must come up: That’s the advice many analysts and brokerages were offering investors as European equity markets tumbled in the final months of 2008 and the opening weeks of 2009, hoping to convince clients that the rout presented a buying opportunity. Relatively few investors took heed, however, preferring to pull their money out of stocks and seek safe havens elsewhere.

“Investors entered the year with real concerns that there could be a 1930s-like Depression,” explains Nicholas Pink, London-­based director of European equity research at UBS. “Sentiment was negative, and there were serious concerns about the security of the banking system in the West.” 

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That sentiment began to...