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Neptune Investment Management is edging back into US regional banks, having held no developed world banks since the start of 2007.

At an Investment Adviser roundtable, Felix Wintle, head of US equities, said the subprime crisis, which Neptune was one of the earliest UK houses to spot, had already done its worst to a significant proportion of the US property market.

He said: "The housing market downturn is two years old, but was discounted by the stock market three years ago."

As a result, Neptune had gravitated towards housebuilders, but was also leaning towards cyclicals such as regional banks.

"The US economy isn't over," Mr Wintle explained. "We don't want exposure to the Merrill Lynches of this world. We want banks that are lending to people, that know their customers well. Since the beginning of June, regional banks have outperformed the S&P 500."

Decisive action by the authorities had improved the picture for the US economy, he said.

"Very aggressive action has been taken by the Fed. Rates were 4.5 per cent in November 2007. Now they're 1 per cent."

Mr Wintle said he was also looking at dividend-paying global bellwethers with high barriers to entry and the capacity to self-finance. After investing in US exporters earlier this year due to the weak dollar, he said current dollar strength could also produce sound opportunities.

"The other part of the current picture is that the strength of the dollar is the reverse of commodities and oil. Until the global economy gets better, we're going to have dollar strength as a long-term theme. It's as possible to make money in the US with a weak or strong dollar because you've got so many companies."

Bob Baur, chief global economist at Principal Global Investors, told the roundtable participants there were companies with "trim payrolls and lots of cash on the balance sheet" in social infrastructure, retirement planning, medicine and aerospace.

Despite the strong dollar, he was still optimistic about exporters, as he felt the dollar would weaken.

"With unit labour costs flat, if you look at labour costs in the US against the euro, they're down 35 per cent," he said. "Chinese growth is going to be positive going forward. The US is restructuring to focus on those export opportunities."

Overall, he said, the global slowdown could not be blamed on fundamental long-term problems with the US economy.

"From 2001-07, we had the fastest economic growth in the history of mankind," he said. "That created speculation in all asset classes, especially property, credit and commodities.

"The problem is, booms contain the seeds of their own destruction. We're not here because the US is dead and buried."