Fidelity’s Bolton Predicts ‘Multi-Year’ Bull Market

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Sustainable economic growth and low interest rates worldwide will spur a “multi-year” bull market in equities, led by developing nations, said Fidelity International’s Anthony Bolton.

“Low growth means low interest rates, and actually that’s one of the best environments for stock-market investing,” Bolton, president of investments at Fidelity International, which oversees about $141 billion, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. “Anything that can show growth in this low-growth environment is going to be bid up by investors. It’s very pro the emerging-market world versus the developed world.”

Policy makers in the U.S. and Europe will keep interest rates low for another year even as Australia’s central bank unexpectedly raised rates today, Bolton said. He’s “particularly optimistic” on Chinese stocks because the government will foster sustained economic growth without fueling inflation.

Bolton’s view contrasts with New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini and Elliott Wave International Inc.’s Robert Prechter, who have said shares are poised to retreat. Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross predicted low economic growth will restrict annual stock returns to 5 percent, while Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said investors have been “irrationally exuberant” about an economic recovery.

Stock Rally

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index has climbed 62 percent this year on expectations that developing nations will lead a rebound in the global economy from its worst recession since World War II. Emerging-market economies may grow 6 percent next year, compared with 1.8 percent growth in advanced nations, according to HSBC Holdings Plc.

The MSCI emerging markets gauge climbed 1.5 percent as of 12:23 p.m. in London as higher commodity prices boosted earnings prospects for producers and HSBC said its purchasing managers’ index for developing economies posted its biggest gain in more than a year. The MSCI World Index of developed nations, up 21 percent this year, gained 0.9 percent today.

Bolton, Fidelity’s first fund manager in Europe, said on March 11 that the U.K. equity market was at or near its lowest point. The nation’s benchmark FTSE 100 Index, which tumbled 31 percent in 2008, bottomed on March 3 and has since rallied 45 percent. Bolton dumped his holdings of telecommunications stocks in the first quarter of 2000 at the height of the industry’s bull market.

Bolton’s Special Situations Fund beat the FTSE All-Share Index on an annual basis by 6 percentage points from 1979 through 2007, according to Fidelity. Fidelity International is the London-based affiliate of Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest mutual-fund company.