The Matrix Asia Fund, a long/short equity fund managed by Rupert Foster, returned +1.32% in May adding value on both the long and short books and outperforming the MSCI Asia Index by 11.16% for the month. Year-to-date the Fund is up +9.58% whilst the MSCI Asia Index has returned -5.79%. Since inception on 08/08/08, the Matrix Asia Fund has outperformed the MSCI Asia Pacific Index by 64.6% returning 50.5% (to 31 May 2010).

Back in May, Matrix announced the launch of its first UCITS III fund, the Matrix Asia UCITS Fund which is also run by Rupert and his team and has a similar investment objective to the hedge fund. Over an investment cycle, Rupert expects to add a third of the performance from his short book.

Commenting on May’s performance, Rupert Foster said: “In May our long book was able to significantly out-perform the market with particular resilience in shipbuilding stocks and some domestic Japanese mid-cap cyclicals. Our short book also performed well with a number of shorts in over owned and overvalued cyclicals and a number of companies having very poor earnings forecasts for this year. The key to performing in current market conditions is a focus on earnings revision and not attempting to call the macro picture which remains unclear."