JPMorgan Asian seeks to outperform the MSCI Asia ex Japan benchmark and owns a portfolio made up of the best ideas backed by insights from a large proprietary research team. Country-level valuations are used to guide the PMs to shorter term tilts or where they look for ideas, but the main driver of return is stock selection rather than industry or country bets. Returns have been strong since J.P.Morgan combined its Emerging Markets and Asia Pacific teams and standardised its research process, with the fund outperforming in rising and falling markets. It is currently the best-performing fund in the open or closed-end Asia Pacific ex Japan sectors. The trust has paid out a dividend of 4% of NAV since October 2016, made up of quarterly payments of 1%, the majority of which comes from capital reserves. As a result, the trust offers a higher yield even than some of the income-focused portfolios in the combined open- and closed-ended Asia ex Japan peer group. The trust is trading on a discount of 12%, within the range of 10% to 15% that is typical of the past few years. It is the cheapest closed-ended option in the space in terms of OCF, and amongst the cheapest in the combined open- and closed-ended sector.
