LEHMAN Brothers filing for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 is a seminal moment in any financial practitioner’s mind.

It followed a tumultuous two weeks for stock markets that saw them fall by over 15 per cent, only to fall a further 35% over the winter months until they finally bottomed in March 2009.

Ten years on, it is appropriate to ponder what lessons have been learned and whether, if another crisis occurs, there are appropriate tools to solve it.

I’m not sure many lessons have been learnt in all honesty. A decade on from the middle of the financial crisis it would appear that investors are increasingly chasing returns, ignoring risks over liquidity and valuation, and still placing an uncomfortable amount of confidence in central bankers.

The crisis of 2008, was very much borne out of a banking system that was over-extended and badly capitalised.

To you and me that means they’d lent too much and hadn’t saved enough cash for a rainy day: debt levels were too high.

We would argue that the financial system is on safer grounds from the perspective of the banking sector, where (outside of certain European banks) the medicine has been taken and there is a reduced tolerance for taking risk.

Global banks now have 50% more “safe-cash” on their balance sheets and they are far exceeding the safety-net buffers that new regulations require.

However, the answer to solving the financial crisis is akin to borrowing from Peter (sovereign states) to pay Paul (the banks): debt levels are still too high.

Debt has not gone away and has in fact increased by 40% globally; it’s just shifted from the private to the public sector.

From our perspective, we see many of the indicators that were flashing amber warnings in 2006 as flashing similar warnings again now.

These were largely ignored and thrown into the “this time it’s different” bucket last time out.

We didn’t ignore them then and we don’t now. Specifically, there are messages from the bond market that suggest that this cycle is long in the tooth and for us that means caution is warranted.

Perhaps the most worrying thing about where we are today though versus 10 years prior is a lack of trust and confidence in politicians.

Short termism from politicians is the clearest sign of a lack of lessons learned and how they have escaped more criticism from the actions that contributed to the financial crisis is beyond me.

Furthermore, the toxic relationship between the US and China makes for an uncomfortable back-drop, since these were the two nations that saved the day in 2008.

As the two largest economies globally, they have a great deal of power under their influence and the collision course they’re currently on is unnerving for late-stage markets.

Throw into the mix that central bank affirmative action has largely been exhausted and one doesn’t get filled with confidence that the next crisis will be as easy to avert.

The greatest lesson that l learned, which has helped to shape my investment philosophy and our investment process, is that the investments that feel the most difficult will often be the most rewarding.

Some of the best decisions we made were in the depths of the crisis and the ensuing recovery 10 years ago and I’d love to see similar valuations on offer now.

Tim Wishart is head of Scotland and the north of England at Psigma Investment Management.