VIEW-Fidelity's Bolton says financial stocks to rise first

TOKYO (Reuters) - Fidelity International's Anthony Bolton, one of Britain's top performing fund managers, said on Thursday financial and consumer stocks may be the first to recover after taking hard action against the credit crisis.

But commodity stocks, which have been on a bull run in the last five or six years, could take one or two years to recover, said Bolton, president of investments at Fidelity.

"Financials were first into the crisis and I think they could be first out of the crisis," Bolton told a news conference.

"I think a lot of the consumer stocks have already discounted a deep recession and therefore they are attractive."

Bolton said commodities stocks might lag.

"Nearly every hedge fund was playing the momentum trade in commodities and I think it will take a year or two for that to be corrected," Bolton said.

On Wednesday, the basket of 19 commodity futures comprising the key Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index .CRB fell to its lowest level since September 2003, ending down 0.74 percent at 240.56 -- almost half a record 473.97 hit in early July.

Bolton said recent sharp volatility in the market could be suggesting that the market could be at lows.

"This high daily volatility of markets ... is typical of a change in the environment," he said.

"The stock market is an excellent discounting mechanism, so often what you worry about is already in the prices of shares."

U.S. stocks hit their lowest level in five and a half years on Wednesday, with the Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX and the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC down more than 6 percent, and the Dow Jones industrial .DJI down more than 5 percent.

Bolton said it was important to purchase stocks of companies with healthy financial positions as the worst of the banking crisis could be over.

With regards to emerging markets, Bolton said he would prefer to be in developed markets rather than in emerging markets in the short term, but buying opportunities in countries such as China and India could emerge by next year.

"The long-term prospects of the emerging market are good," Bolton said, adding that he would closely watch economic data from China and India early next year.

(Reporting by Chikafumi Hodo; Editing by David Cowell)