Strategist: Investors, take a long-term perspective when it comes to the election

It's no secret that the presidential election has been driving investor anxiety.

The key, according to Fidelity's John Sweeney, is to maintain a long-term outlook and faith the market will recover, whatever happens.

"At this point … we're trying to convince people to stay the course," Sweeney told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Tuesday. "If you've got a plan [and] you like it, stay with it."

It is not wise to totally discount near-term market moves, said Sweeney, executive vice president of Fidelity's Retirement and Investing Strategies, but realistically, the election is not a driving market factor like earnings growth and interest rates.

"Have a long-term perspective. Don't be worried about the short-term volatility in the market. You should expect some, and you're going to see it, but really take a longer-term focus," the strategist said.

As for the immediate effects, Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citi, said if Hillary Clinton wins, the stock market would lift a bit, the dollar would fall a bit, rates and yields would inch higher, but there would not be any substantial volatility.

"The immediate effect of a Clinton presidency, which is, I think, priced in, more or less, would be minor financial market reaction," Buiter said Tuesday in an interview with Sweeney.

If Donald Trump wins, on the other hand, Buiter said investors could see "a sharp [appreciation] of the dollar, stock market down, yield curve down and a slowdown because [of] the fear of trade wars and adverse labor supply shock and immigration policies."

But if investors have done their homework, Trump's candidacy could create a market that is ripe for the picking, said Seth Masters, chief investment officer of Bernstein, on Tuesday.

Masters told CNBC's "Squawk Alley" that there is a marked correlation between antiestablishment candidates and market uncertainty in past and upcoming elections, such as the ones in Italy, Germany, Austria and France.

"The prospect that they might actually get in will roil markets each time, and that can be an opportunity, if you have well-founded research, to take advantage of overreactions in the market," he said.

And, while Masters acknowledged that the Trump administration's plans for fiscal spending could be good for the economy in the long term, the plans' lack of clarity would prove harmful in the near term.

Yet it is difficult to imagine the shape of economic policy in the case of either party taking the White House, said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities, appearing in the "Squawk Alley" interview with Masters.

With internal fractures wreaking havoc on both the right and the left, Silvia said that even in the case of a sweep, consensus would not be so easy to reach.

"Even if it's a unified Democratic win or a unified Republican win, even the parties themselves have such different views that you're probably not going to get this full speed ahead thrust of economic policy," Silvia said.