Investing icon Peter Lynch says pressure on stocks has thrown up bargains - while hedge-fund legend Seth Klarman warns the market looks 'scary'

• Peter Lynch and Seth Klarman have strikingly different views on the stock market today.
• The Fidelity legend welcomed the bargains popping up, saying he loves when stocks get cheaper.

Legendary investor Peter Lynch is positively thrilled about the bargains available in the stock market today, whereas hedge-fund billionaire Seth Klarman sounds a lot more worried.

"We've been in an incredible bear market for two years," excluding around 10 mega-cap stocks, Lynch told Barron's in a recent interview. The "One Up on Wall Street" author — who returned an average of 29% annually during his 13 years managing Fidelity's Magellan fund — noted that many stocks are trading at rock-bottom valuations today.

"Absolutely," Lynch replied when asked whether he's optimistic about the Russell 2000, a small-cap index. "I love it when stocks go down."

Klarman, the Baupost Group CEO nicknamed the "Oracle of Boston" for his Warren Buffett-style approach to investing, struck a far more dour tone.

"The market is scary and vulnerable," he told Barron's. "The geopolitical strains seem heightened rather clearly. I think in some ways the magnitude of the disaster of the Fed holding rates at zero for a decade is now much more clear."

Both the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq indices fell into correction territory last week, as Wall Street balked at a surge in bond yields, underwhelming Big Tech earnings, and the threat of wider fallout from the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Several commentators have sounded the alarm on a looming stock-market crash and impending recession, pointing to pressure from stubborn inflation and steeper interest rates. However, the main stock indices are solidly in the green this year, and the US economy grew by an astounding 4.9% on an annualized basis last quarter, its fastest rate in two years.