As a long-standing authority on Fidelity funds, advisor Jim Lowell has extraordinary access to the top managers within the Fidelity family.

Here, the editor of Fidelity Investor offers his personal outlook on Fidelity Magellan (FMAGX) -- which he considers a "smart buy" -- plus highlights from an in-depth interview he recently conducted with Magellan fund manager Harry Lange.

"Magellan is a buy for growth. Make that global growth. Indeed, I would consider this fund a 'stellar' long-term buy. The fund turned $10,000 into over $16 million since its launch back in 1963 compared to that same $10,000 over the same long-term time period being turned into only $800,000 if it had been invested in the S&P 500.

"Magellan is currently considered a large cap growth fund. But Lange can, has and will continue to invest in either growth or value stocks in a range that reaches across the mid- and small-cap borders if it suits him. Foreign holdings make up 26.5% of the portfolio.

"The fund's top ten holdings: Nokia, Corning, Canadian Natural Resources, Staples, Monsanto, Google, Applied Materials, America Movil, Suncor Energy, and Allergan." Meanwhile, in Lowell's latest issue of Fidelity Investor, he interviews Harry Lange. Here is Lowell's Q&A with the Magellan manager:

For the past two decades, Jim Lowell developed an industry-leading expertise in analyzing mutual funds, with a particular focus on Fidelity funds. During that time he developed an annual feature known as his "Hot Hands" pick.

He explains, "Those who have followed my Fidelity Investor newsletter know that one trick in our proprietary playbook has been buying the previous year's best performing Fidelity fund and sticking with it for the new year. More often than not it turns out to be a big winner."

Given the growing popularity of exchange-traded funds, Lowell recently launched a new service, The Forbes ETF Advisor. And for the first time, he is applying his Hot Hands approach to ETFs.

He cautions that this strategy has not beaten the market every year. However, he says, "It has provided very healthy long-term result and I believe that many growth-oriented investors could improve their performance by putting a reasonable (5% to 10%) portion of their money to work following my Hot Hands strategy."

He explains, "Here are the ground rules for the strategy. First I looked at all of the diversified ETFs for each year between 2000 and 2006. I excluded single-sector ETFs, and on the international side, I excluded the geographically nondiversified (single country) international ETFs.