Legendary Fidelity investor Anthony Bolton believes BP now represents a once in a lifetime opportunity for investors to buy in.

Bolton, who now runs the Fidelity China Special Situations trust, said that he has searched hard for a way to buy into BP in his China trust but has conceded it is not a China theme.

He said: 'You have to take this as a top down view because I am not as close to BP as I used to be. But I have thought long and hard to see if there is anyway I could include BP in the fund but I really can't find a way to make it into a China play. I think investors are being given a classic once in a lifetime opportunity to buy BP.

'Most of the time it is the case that when something really negative happens investors worry about if and the reality is not as bad as the worrying. Okay they have to pay a lot of money out but my view is BP will survive and will prosper. This will just be considered a very poor chapter in its history.'

His backing for the stock comes as it is knocked in Washington by the decision of a Congress committee to effectively bar it from oil exploration in the United States for years to come.

Nonetheless, the company still trades at a deep discount to the perceived embedded value of its oil resources. The company is trading at 399.5p, falling 0.36% today.

David Fuller's view Hmmm. This "once in a lifetime opportunity" presumably means a gain of approximately 120 percent from the low if BP (weekly & daily) returns to its share price seen just before the rig blew up. Meanwhile, investors face significant asset sales, possible dilution, no immediate closure on liabilities and no dividend. In the global beauty contest, that does not look pretty to me. The share has rebounded recently on short covering and hopes that a takeover bid may occur.

More importantly, Anthony Bolton does not expect a double-dip recession and looking beyond this lengthy correction, is very upbeat on stock markets. This approximates my own view, although I generally prefer to focus on a short to medium-term horizon rather than make multiyear forecasts which involve too much guesswork.