Societe Generale SA was among the few cautious equity strategists at the start of the year to warn about investor complacency.

Now the broker has moved to overweight from neutral on European oil & gas shares in the face of the turmoil in the energy and stock markets.

“After the recent correction, we are ready to dip our toe into the depressed segments,” strategists including Roland Kaloyan wrote in a note, adding that the sector has overshot the drop in oil prices during the sell-off.

They highlight that oil stocks are trading at historical lows to the broader market and that the sector’s price-to-earnings ratio of seven times marks its lowest valuation since the 2009 financial crisis.

Historical observations show that “the sector tends to outperform the market on average by 7% over the following six months when Brent is trading at $30 to $40 per barrel” and by 5% when its 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio is trading at six to eight times, Societe Generale said.

The oil market has been in turmoil over the past few days, after a disagreement within the OPEC+ cartel between Saudi Arabia and Russia on production cuts triggered a price war between the two countries, with other members following through. The Stoxx 600 Oil & Gas Index has fallen about 34% this year, while Brent dropped 45%, as worries about global growth weighed on oil demand even before the coronavirus outbreak.