At minus 10 degrees Celsius, a sudden snowfall disrupted the rhythm of a city.
At six o'clock in the morning, the bus was suspended and the subway was slowed down, but the ** manager Chen Liang (pseudonym) still kept walking, and the company's morning meeting and the live broadcast of the new product on the day made him can't help but speed up his pace and rushed into the office located in the second ring road.
This year's live broadcast is indeed more than last year", Chen Liang, who had just finished a live broadcast, admitted to a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that now participating in live broadcast has become his weekly fixed column.
Different from the active equity ** managers who have been working silently this year, Chen Liang, as the "helmsman" who manages tens of billions of ETFs (exchange-traded open-ended index**), has been busier than ever in the context of the market's ** and ETF popularity during the year.
The scale and share of the market**, the birth of 100 billion products and the continuous emergence of new products have pushed ETFs into the spotlight of the market step by step. I can't help but wonder what is the reason why the ETF will move from a supporting role to the home field in 2023 and become the brightest "star" in the market?
The scale is increasing rapidly
This year, there are more live broadcasts than last year, and this year we have participated in more offline strategy sessions and other activities than in previous years." Chen Liang told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily. With the continuous increase in attention, the live broadcasts and roadshows of various publicly offered ETFs have taken turns. Alipay's financial live broadcast shows that in the past week, there have been no less than 10 ** live broadcasts related to index products or led by relevant "helmsmen".
Behind the neat and uniform marketing actions of the organization is a real capital outlet. In the context of market volatility and poor returns of active equity during the year, ETFs broke through the encirclement and achieved a contrarian market in terms of share and scale. On the whole, Flush iFind data shows that as of December 18, the ETF has accumulated a net inflow of 5,445 during the year9.3 billion copies. In terms of size, as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, the total size of ETFs reached 259 trillion yuan, compared with 191 trillion yuan, an increase of 3535%。
In terms of top products, Huatai Pineapple CSI 300 ETF achieved a "soaring" scale during the year, not only exceeding 100 billion yuan to become a "giant" product, but also becoming the first equity ETF in A-share with a scale of more than 100 billion yuan. According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, the scale of Huatai Pineapple CSI 300 ETF reached 1200400 million yuan, an increase of 134 year-on-year33%。During the same period, there were 36 equity ETFs with a scale of more than 10 billion yuan.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the sharp rise in the share and scale of ETFs is closely related to the buying behavior of the people. "Since 2023, the stock index has been weak as a whole, but equity ETFs have shown a phenomenon of 'buying more and more when they fall', with a large number of shares continuing to flow in, and the share of monthly net inflows in many months has exceeded the highest monthly net inflows in 2018-2020, and the accelerated expansion of equity ETFs has been established. Xu Meng, executive general manager of Huaxia's ** quantitative investment department, introduced.
Looking at the past five years, the domestic ETF market has also achieved leapfrog development, among which equity ETFs have made great contributions. According to public data, from 2018 to 2022, the scale of domestic equity ETFs was 348.6 billion yuan, 575.7 billion yuan, 795.3 billion yuan, 1,090.4 billion yuan, and 1,285.9 billion yuan. As of November 2023, the total size of domestic equity ETFs exceeds 16 trillion yuan, the number of 787 (shares are calculated together, the same below).
The pace of new products is accelerating.
The sudden rise of ETFs in 2023 is not only the resonance of market style and product characteristics, but also the expression of investor sentiment, and it is also the accumulation of long-term accumulation of indexed investment trends, which should be the result of a comprehensive factor. A public offering ** market person sighed to a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.
In the context of the overall popularity of ETFs, many public offering managers have also continued to make efforts to make layouts, and new product applications are in full swing, and the first batch of ETFs tracking CSI 1000, ChiNext 200, SZSE 50 and other indices have also been launched during the year.
Flush ifind data shows that from the establishment date, as of December 19, a total of 1,207 ** were established during the year, with an issuance scale of 10,7002.2 billion yuan. Among them, 377 are index**, with an issuance size of 27894.1 billion yuan, accounting for 2607%, and the number of new ETFs and connections** also reached 234, an increase of more than 20% from 189 in the same period in 2022.
Judging from the newly reported products, on December 8, the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission showed that Harvest**, Nanfang**, and Huaan** reported the first batch of Shenzhen Stock Exchange Main Board 50 ETFs in China. As the first broad-based index on the main board, the SZSE Main Board 50 Index reflects the trend of leading companies with large market capitalization, strong industry representativeness and high fundamental value on the main board, with an average total market value of nearly 130 billion yuan. In addition, the first two SZSE 50 ETFs were also listed on December 11 after completing the fundraising in November.
From the perspective of global asset allocation, the first ETF that directly invested in the capital market of Saudi Arabia was also declared recently. According to the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Huatai Pineapple ** declared Huatai Pineapple CSOP Saudi Arabia ETF (QDII) on December 13, which is the first public offering product in China to directly invest in the Saudi Arabian capital market. On December 1, the first SSE-SGX cross-listed product, Huatai Pineapple CSOP SGX Pan-Southeast Asia Technology ETF, was also listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The continuous introduction of innovative products is also inseparable from the support of regulatory authorities. In August this year, the relevant person in charge of the China Securities Regulatory Commission mentioned speeding up the reform of the investment side and vigorously developing the equity category in answering reporters' questions on activating the capital market and boosting investor confidence, which also includes relaxing the registration conditions of the index, improving the efficiency of index development, and encouraging managers to increase product innovation.
The more detailed investment scope has also attracted a lot of fans. Judging from the new issuance of ETFs in November, the Southern SSE Science and Technology Innovation Board 100 ETF raised 8900 million yuan;Huatai Pineapple SSE STAR Market 100 ETF raised 105.9 billion yuan;The SZSE 50 ETF under E Fund** and Wells Fargo** lasted 5 days to "absorb" a total of more than 5 billion yuan.
The above-mentioned public offering market sources said that from the perspective of market style and product characteristics, whether it is from the improvement of economic fundamentals, or the continuous force of policies, including the retrospective deduction of past data, the possibility of A-shares bottoming out is increasing, and many funds are actually "willing;The index, including ETF, has always been regarded as a "sharp weapon" because of its stable style (industry theme type is distinct), low fee rate, simple and transparent, etc., so some low-level layout funds choose to use ETF for layout and wait for the opportunity of market reversal.
Broad-based products are preferred.
Through the appearance of "hurricane", the explosion of ETFs in 2023 actually has traces to follow.
Looking back on history, in 2018, it was difficult to take the initiative to defeat the broad-based index. In 2019 and 2020, some industry themes performed prominently, and it was relatively easy to actively overweight certain industries or themes, and beat broad-based indices such as CSI 300. Since 2022, with the systematic adjustment of the market, the active performance has begun to fall into a downturn. Entering 2023, the Partial Stocks** Index continues to underperform the CSI 800. The average excess return of active equity ** is negative, and the difficulty of beating the index increases, which may also be due to the fact that part of the excess return of active ** actually comes from industry beta, not alpha in the real sense. Xu Meng analyzed.
Looking back on the market situation in 2023, Xu Meng pointed out that although there are not many opportunities in the market as a whole, we have seen that some industries or indices still perform well, such as animation, games, artificial intelligence, media and other industries, as well as the Nasdaq index and commodities.
As Xu Meng said, ETFs in the animation, game and other industries have achieved good results during the year. Judging from the performance of related ** products during the year, a number of "game bases" once topped the performance list due to their outstanding performance during the year. According to Flush iFinD data, as of December 18, the annual returns of Cathay CSI Animation and Game ETF Connect A C and ChinaAMC CSI Animation and Game ETF Initiation Connection A C both exceeded 40%, and the annual return rate in equity ETFs was second only to that of Nasdaq theme ETFs.
Thematic ETFs win performance, while broad-based ETFs win scale. Chen Liang mentioned, "This year's market performance is not good, especially the previous direction of institutions and foreign capital heavy positions continue to lose blood, so active products can not outperform passive products, superimposed macro factors, ** funds give preference to index products, especially broad-based index related products."
Judging from the top 30 equity ETFs by scale as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, the scale of related products has achieved year-on-year growth, and the scale of some broad-based index products has increased significantly, and the head effect is prominent. For example, the latest size of the ChinaAMC SSE STAR Market 50 ETF, which is second only to Huatai Pineapple CSI 300 ETF, increased by 222 year-on-year61% to 9467.3 billion yuan. In addition, the latest scale of many products such as ChinaAMC Hang Seng TECH Index ETF, E Fund CSI 300 ETF, E Fund SSE STAR Market 50 ETF, and E Fund ChiNext ETF has also doubled year-on-year.
According to Lin Weibin, general manager of E Fund** Index Investment Department, holding the core broad-based index for a long time can help ordinary investors share the fruits of the country's economic growth and achieve wealth preservation and appreciation. He believes that while index growth is largely driven by earnings growth and dividend earnings from listed companies from a long-term perspective, it is undeniable that short-term valuation changes are also significant. It is difficult to accurately determine a valuation because it is full of randomness due to factors such as investor sentiment.
With the gradual improvement of market efficiency and the improvement of indexation investment cognition, China's index market will usher in an era of great development. The stronger the index investment ecosystem, the more it can withstand wind and rain, in order to achieve long-term sustainable development. Lin Weibin said.
Financial commentator Guo Shiliang believes that whether the ETF market can continue to be hot in the future still depends on the market environment, and the market environment is conducive to the gradual recovery of ETFs.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Li Haiyuan.