UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C.  20549

FORM N-CSR

CERTIFIED SHAREHOLDER REPORT OF REGISTERED MANAGEMENT
INVESTMENT COMPANIES

Investment Company Act file number

811-21872


Mutual Fund Series Trust

(Exact name of registrant as specified in charter)


17605 Wright Street Omaha, Nebraska                 68130

  

(Address of principal executive offices)

(Zip code)


James Ash, Gemini Fund Services, LLC.

 

450 Wireless Blvd., Hauppauge, NY 11788

              (Name and address of agent for service)


Registrant's telephone number, including area code:

631-470-2619


Date of fiscal year end:

6/30


Date of reporting period: 6/30/13


ITEM 1.  REPORTS TO SHAREHOLDERS.  





[CATALYSTEGNCSR201309002.GIF]


ANNUAL REPORT


Eventide Gilead Fund

Eventide Healthcare & Life Sciences Fund

June 30, 2013





Eventide Asset Management, LLC

60 State Street

 Suite 700

Boston, MA 02109


1-877-771-3836



Dear valued shareholders:


We are pleased to have been able to serve our investors over the past year.  Eventide Gilead Fund (“Gilead”) completed the year on June 30th with an annual return of 35.61% compared to 20.60% for the S&P 500 Total Return Index, an outperformance of 15.01%.  The Eventide Healthcare & Life Sciences Fund (“EHLS”), which was launched on December 27, 2012 completed the year with a 25.00% return compared to 23.96% for its relative index for the same period, an outperformance of 1.04%. The index that we have selected for EHLS is a blended index composed of equal parts of the S&P MidCap 400 Health Care Index and the S&P SmallCap 600 Health Care Index.


During this period, both Funds also had relatively low correlation to the market, which allowed them to be good diversifying components to your portfolios.  For the year, the R-squared of Gilead was 54.51 and the R-squared of EHLS was 48.85, compared with the S&P 500 Index.

 

During the past year, our best performer was Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (2.22% of Gilead’s net assets and 3.06% of EHLS’s net assets as of June 30, 2013). While we continued to have excellent results selecting investments in the biotechnology and healthcare space, some of our top performers in Gilead included companies in the consumer discretionary space – Tesla Motors, Inc. (2.66% of net assets), financials – Ocwen Financial Corp. (2.00% of net assets), and industrials – Macquarie Infrastructure Co., Inc. (2.63% of net assets).

   

Our worst performer was Dynavax Technologies (0% of Gilead and EHLS net assets as of June 30, 2013). Dynavax’s stock price was hurt by the FDA’s decision to not approve the use of their drug candidate Hepislav. Although the Hepatitis B vaccine produced positive results and received the FDA advisory panel’s recommendation of the drug by a vote of 13 to 1 on the question of efficacy, the committee voted 8 to 5 with one FDA member abstaining from voting to not approve the drug due to what they considered insufficient safety data.  Heplisav failed to convince the panel that the vaccine was safe, despite having treated more than 4,400 patients. Dynavax, therefore, has had to go back and perform a long-term late stage safety study on Heplisav, which has significantly delayed the approval process while burning through cash.

 

Overall, we are very pleased with the performance of the Funds during the past year.

 

We continue to study the macro-economic environment to determine how to position both the portfolios.  Weighing the bearish and bullish arguments, we on balance believe that the market has further room for advancement.

  

The following graph of recommended equity allocation by sell-side analysts provides an indication about where we are currently within broad market cycles.


[CATALYSTEGNCSR201309004.GIF]

The referenced indices are shown for general market comparisons and are not meant to represent the Funds. Investors cannot directly invest in an index; unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges.

 

Last year, we mentioned in our letter how financial professionals were recommending a very low allocation to equities, in fact the lowest value since these data were systematically recorded starting in 1985.  Bill Gross of PIMCO had caught headlines at that time for declaring equities effectively dead.  As depicted in the chart above, sentiment has since rebounded but still remains bearish.  Since investor sentiment is a good contrarian indicator, this bearishness suggests that it remains a good time to be invested.


One of the best developments in 2013 has been the brisk initial public offering (IPO) market within biotechnology and healthcare.  While we have only participated in one IPO year to date, the new companies that have entered the market are providing us with many new ideas which are under diligence.


We remain positioned to take advantage of broad market appreciation because we believe that the market still has upside potential.  There is still considerable money allocated to bonds that we believe can be moved into the equity markets causing significant appreciation.  Other reasons for optimism include the falling labor costs in the U.S.; the US having become a net exporter of oil; the excellent health of corporate balance sheets; stocks’ inexpensive valuations compared to the 10-year treasury rates; and leading indicators, such as the Conference Board Leading Economic Index, are still suggesting recovery.  In addition, global monetary easing continues unabated and this may serve as a “put” on the markets.   Finally, largely due to revenue growth, the federal government is moving closer toward a balanced budget.


Yet, there are various concerns in the macro-economy that we continue to closely monitor.  For example, the higher cost of borrowing could stifle the nascent housing recovery and push the economy back into a recession; recent company earnings announcements have been mixed; long-term price to earnings valuation metrics, such as a metric known as CAPE (which measures the cyclically adjusted P/E ratio over a 10 year period), show that the market is somewhat overvalued; an increase in commodity prices could hurt the economy; ongoing Middle East conflicts may cause energy spikes; and the national debt remains high.


In summary, while we are cautiously optimistic that the market still has upside potential in the current bull market, we continue to stress the importance of disciplined investing and hope that our investors can ignore the noise from financial news sources and spend meaningful time with their families and loved ones.


As always, we are grateful for your trust.


Sincerely,



Finny Kuruvilla & David Barksdale



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The S&P 500 Total Return Index is an index created by Standard & Poor's of American stocks with the largest market capitalization. It is not an investment product available for purchase.

The S&P MidCap 400 Health Care Index is an index created by Standard & Poor's of those companies included in the S&P MidCap 400 that are classified as members of the GICS health care sector.

The S&P SmallCap 600 Health Care Index is an index created by Standard & Poor's of those companies included in the S&P SmallCap 600 that are classified as members of the GICS health care sector.

Correlation is a statistical measure of how two securities move in relation to each other.

R-Squared is calculated using the log of daily price changes of ETGLX and the S&P 500 index. R-Squared is the square of the correlation of the daily log returns of ETGLX and the Index.

Put serves as a hedge against a decline in share price.