Fortitude Capital's Absolute Return Trust generated a positive return of 0.44% in January with the fund's Mergers and Acquisitions portfolio making the largest contribution, in which the fund's largest position remains in Indophil resources.

The manager attributes the fund's -3.84% result for January to overweight exposure to the Materials sector with large positions in BHP, Rio Tinto and Westpac the main contributors to the fall.

The manager said that ARCM's Ascot Fund fall of 2.45% in January was disappointing, although against a backdrop of a more than 6.2% fall in the Australian equity market the fund achieved a solid result.

Regal's Tasman Market Neutral Fund gained 1.41% in January with losses occuring in the fund's holdings in the Utilities and Basic Minerals sectors, while profits were made from short positions in the Industrials sector.

In what was the worst month for the local sharemarket since November 2008, the Bennelong Securities Long Short Equity Fund managed to gain 0.25%.

Pengana's Global Small Companies Fund grew by a strong 5.6% in December, although this was less than its benchmark which rose 6.3%.

PM Capital's Absolute Performance Fund posted a +7.10% return for the month and is up 32% over the last year.

The fund manager notes that Regal's Amazon Market Neutral Fund had a slightly disappointing finish to the year slipping -2.60%, although this still leaves the fund with positive growth over the last 12 months of 38.61%

Bennelong's Long Short Equity Fund recorded solid growth in December as several key pairs added value.

Fortitude\\'s Absolute Return Trust was slightly down in November, only losing 0.0157%, largely due to poor performance in the fund\\'s derivatives book which has been scaled back and restructured to reduce exposure going forward.