Greetham, who heads up nine onshore multi-asset funds at the firm, says that the crisis in Syria and fears over the effects of an end to QE have led to a short-term fall in sentiment. Markets will rise over the medium-term, he says, meaning that current prices represent an excellent buying opportunity.
"Fears over Fed tapering and the likelihood of a US strike on Syria have driven equity sentiment to a deeply oversold level," he said.
"We are overweight equities in our multi-asset funds and are more likely to buy than sell into current weakness as a firmly positive US earnings trend and some kind of resolution in the Middle-East lead markets to look on the bright side again."
The MSCI World index is down 4.52 per cent over the past month, with the S&P 500 down as much as 5.53 per cent, according to FE Analytics data. The FTSE All Share has fallen 1.86 per cent in this time.
Performance of indices over 1month
Source: FE Analytics
"Investor sentiment has been manic in the last few months, swinging from deeply oversold in June to a strong overbought reading in July," Greetham said.
"The current move back into depressed territory is being driven by concerns over imminent Fed tapering and also the situation in Syria, with a US military strike very likely in the next couple of weeks."
Greetham’s conclusions are driven by a quantitative calculation produced by Fidelity’s in-house technology.
"Our proprietary Composite Sentiment Indicator takes into account market action, volatility, private investor bullishness and the behaviour of company directors in buying or selling shares in their own companies."
"The current level is 1.42 standard deviations below average, one of the 10 per cent of most depressed weekly readings in the last 20 years."
"We find that deeply oversold readings like this create short-term buying opportunities for stocks."
The manager says that he is also bullish on equities in the medium-term, believing that fears over the consequences of the US Federal Reserve tapering its QE programme are overblown.
"Sharp rises in bond yields and Fed tapering have the power to unsettle other asset markets but we expect equities to come out of this adjustment period relatively well," he said.
"Valuations never really factored in the artificially low bond yields of recent years and a re-acceleration in global growth should support a positive trend in corporate earnings."
Greetham’s positivity on corporate earnings is notable, as one major worry over equity markets this year has been that growth in revenues has been sluggish.
Yesterday FE Alpha Manager Harry Nimmo warned there was the possibility of a short-term dip in stock markets as a result of this lag.
Rob Morgan, analyst at Charles Stanley Direct, says that he thinks now is a good time for investors to consider increasing their weighting to equities, but that there will be dips along the way.
"It’s a difficult time of year, September and October, it tends to be hurricane season and the stock market doesn’t do well in September."
"It may be a coincidence, but you do tend to get these stock market crashes in September and October, and statistically September is the worst month for stock market returns."
"I would be looking for entry points over the next couple of months. I think a lot of stuff is going on and although it’s no time to sell, if you are rebalancing then perhaps picking up equities in this period is a good idea."
"Particularly picking up equities in markets that are undervalued is probably the right strategy."
"I would be looking at European equities, which are depressed, to a degree Japan and even emerging markets."
With the exception of the emerging markets, all the markets Morgan mentions have had strong years, albeit from different starting points.
Performance of indices over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
Morgan says he would be looking outside the US for new equity exposure, despite the fact the market has suffered most in the recent dip.
"US equities have priced in to a degree a lot of good news, but I’m not sure that’s true of Europe," he continued.
"There seems to be depressed valuations in more cyclical areas, while traditionally defensive consumer stocks like Nestle are well-bought."
Greetham runs a range of funds in the multi-asset sectors, most of which are in the bottom quartile over one year.
The past few years have been tough for the manager, with data from FE Analytics showing he has underperformed his peer group composite.
However, over the longer term he has been more successful and has beaten his peers over both five and 10 years.
Performance of manager and peers over 5yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Over five years he has returned an average of 32.2 per cent while his peers have managed 26.94 per cent.
