This sector is surging against the market trend, with many stocks hitting all-time highs! The latest list of insurance funds’ heavily held stocks has been released.

In the early trading session on April 3, the major stock market indexes mainly oscillated and fell. The Shanghai Composite Index again fell below 3,900 points, down 0.93% to 3,882.69. The Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.73%, and the ChiNext Index inched down 0.21%. In terms of sectors, concepts such as optical communications, shipping, and AI computing power led the gains. The power sector saw a deep pullback, while concepts such as hydropower, lithium batteries, and coal declined.

Optical communications leads several stocks to hit all-time highs

In the morning session, the optical communications sector rose across the board. The concept index gained 3.87% in the morning session today, with the cumulative gain since the beginning of the year reaching 32.08%. Several stocks once again set new all-time highs in the morning session, including Deko Li, Tongguang Optical Fiber, Optcore Technology, Hengtong Optic-Electric, and Changguang Huaxi.

Benefiting from the wave of data center construction, the optical communications industry is entering a favorable cycle, with rapid growth in the market size of the entire industrial chain. For optical fibers, according to CRU’s latest report, in 2026 global demand for data center optical fibers is expected to reach 91.6 million fiber-kilometers (fiber-km), up 32% year over year.

For optical modules, according to Trend Force’s latest research, in 2025 the global optical transceiver module market with 800G and above will reach 24 million units, and the forecast for 2026 is nearly 63 million pairs of modules, representing growth of as much as 2.6 times.

For optical chips, according to ICC consulting statistics, in 2024 the global telecommunications-side optical communications optical chip market size reached $1.85 billion; it is expected that by the end of 2029 the global telecommunications-side optical communications optical chip market size will reach $3.7 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 14.97%.

Insurance funds heavily hold 27 non-financial stocks worth over 1 billion yuan

As listed companies’ annual reports are disclosed one after another, the latest positions of insurance fund heavy-holding stocks have come to light. Statistics show that currently, among the top 10 tradable shareholders at the end of Q4 2025, 193 stocks have insurance capital among their top 10. Based on the closing price at the end of Q4 2025, the total market value of shares held reaches 1.47 trillion yuan.

By industry, the two major financial industries—non-bank financial and banking—have the highest market value of insurance-fund holdings, at 907.693 billion yuan and 438.313 billion yuan respectively. In addition, in four industries—communications, non-ferrous metals, power equipment, and automobiles—the market value of insurance-fund holdings is above 10 billion yuan.

After excluding stocks in the banking and non-bank financial industries, among the 27 stocks with insurance-fund holdings exceeding 1 billion yuan, China Unicom, China Telecom, and Zijin Mining are at the top by market value of shares held, at 16.303 billion yuan, 7.374 billion yuan, and 7.178 billion yuan respectively.

China Unicom’s annual report shows that China Life Insurance Company Limited—Traditional—Ordinary Insurance Products is the company’s second-largest tradable shareholder, and it has been heavily positioned starting from the fourth quarter of 2020. The annual report shows that it achieved operating revenue of 392.223 billion yuan, up 0.68% year over year, and attributable net profit of 9.127 billion yuan, up 1.07% year over year, with both numbers reaching new highs again.

China Telecom’s Q4 2025 holdings show that China Life Insurance Company Limited—Traditional—Ordinary Insurance Products increased its holdings by nearly 30 million shares. In the annual report, the company stated that its new strategic businesses maintained relatively fast growth, with Tianyi Cloud revenue reaching RMB 120.7 billion yuan. The market share of public cloud IaaS rose to the domestic second position, and the market share of IaaS+PaaS ranked in the top three domestically.

38 stocks newly added to insurance-fund heavy holdings

Statistics show that 38 stocks were newly added to insurance funds’ heavy holdings in Q4 2025. Bank of Communications, Xin’ao Co., and China Yangtze have the leading positions by market value of shares held, reaching 4.858 billion yuan, 1.835 billion yuan, and 1.421 billion yuan respectively.

Bank of Communications’ annual report shows that China Life Insurance Company Limited—Traditional—Ordinary Insurance Products newly entered as the company’s seventh-largest tradable shareholder, which is also the first time since 2016 that the company has received insurance-fund heavy-holding. The company has recently released a dividend plan: it will distribute cash dividends of 1.684 yuan for every 10 shares (including tax), for a total cash dividend of RMB 14.88 billion. In 2025, the company distributed cash dividends totaling RMB 28.692 billion for the full year.

Xin’ao Co. received new heavy holdings from both insurance funds and equity fund-type funds in Q4 2025. In a recent investor Q&A platform, the company said that it has built a multi-level natural gas storage reserve system, and its self-owned and controllable gas storage capacity exceeds 1 billion cubic meters, which can fully meet daily supply and emergency peak-shaving needs. The company’s gas-source layout is diversified, and it has already established an international and domestic dynamic resource pool. Its existing LNG import transportation routes are not affected by factors related to the Strait of Hormuz, and resource security is stable and reliable.

Insurance funds continued to increase their holdings of high-dividend-yield stocks in 2025. Statistics show that among the 38 newly added heavy-holding stocks above, 36 will implement cash dividends. The total amount of cash dividends in the annual reports reaches 36.525 billion yuan. Among the top by cash dividends totals are Bank of Communications, China Insurance Co., and Hongqiao Holding, reaching 14.88 billion yuan, 6.412 billion yuan, and 3.258 billion yuan respectively.

（Source: Data Pao）