The total market ETF size drops below 5 trillion yuan! Shrinking by over 1 trillion yuan this year.

Last week (March 30–April 3), A-share equities continued to adjust. Major domestic indexes first moved up and then fell back. The CSI 300 Index fell 1.37%, the CSI A500 Index fell 1.76%, and the STAR Market 50 Index fell 3.42%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index stabilized and rebounded: it rose 0.66% over the week. However, tech stocks continued to decline, with the Hang Seng Tech Index falling 2.07%.

Last week’s ETF (exchange-traded fund) market can be described as a classic “seesaw” play. On one side, A-shares and Hong Kong tech, among other major indexes, kept adjusting, causing the total ETF market size across the board to drop below the 5-trillion-yuan mark, and stock ETFs alone bled more than 1 trillion yuan year-to-date. On the other side, risk-averse capital fled aggressively and poured back into gold and bonds.

Against this backdrop, last week’s ETF market returned to the mantra “he who has gold has the world.” Gold-themed ETFs directly dominated the top four spots on the single-product net inflow increase list, with the Hua’an Gold ETF raking in 8.6 billion yuan in a single week.

16 new ETFs added last week

With the equity market continuing to adjust last week, stock ETFs shrank by 78.8 billion yuan, with total year-to-date outflows exceeding 1 trillion yuan. Although commodity-type and bond-type ETF markets both rebounded, the total ETF market size across the board fell below 5 trillion yuan, shrinking to 4.98 trillion yuan. According to Wind, last week saw 16 new ETFs added, including 12 stock ETFs and 4 cross-border ETFs. The total number of listed ETFs has now reached 1,475.

In terms of specific size changes, commodity-type ETFs and bond ETFs grew by 50k yuan and 10k yuan, respectively, becoming a main haven for capital amid heightened risk-averse sentiment. However, under the “seesaw” effect, capital continued to flow out of the equity market. Stock ETFs and cross-border ETFs shrank by 10k yuan and 50k yuan, respectively; money-market ETFs saw a smaller decline of 0.213 billion yuan.

Year-to-date (as of April 5), the total outflow from ETFs across the market was 1,041.337 billion yuan. Of this, stock ETFs had already shrunk by 1,018.140 billion yuan, bond ETFs by 49.8k yuan, cross-border ETFs by 18.09B yuan, and money-market ETFs by a small 0.249 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the size of commodity-type ETFs grew by 10.5B yuan.

Who was the “biggest shrinker” last week?

For ETFs tracking major benchmark indexes, among the TOP20 indexes last week, only four indexes recorded growth in AUM. They were SGE Gold 9999, Nasdaq 100, Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovation Drugs, and the Dividend Low Volatility index. The SGE Gold 9999 index-tracking ETF’s AUM grew by 16.56 billion yuan, mainly due to a strong rebound in gold ETFs last week. The ETF tracking the Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovation Drugs index also increased by more than 5 billion yuan, benefiting from the collective strength of Hong Kong biotech and pharma stocks last week.

Two broad-based indexes’ tracking ETFs saw AUM declines of more than 10 billion yuan last week. The CSI A500 Index became the “biggest shrinker,” with a weekly shrinkage of over 13 billion yuan; the CSI 300 Index shrank by 11.8 billion yuan. In addition, ETFs tracking the Hong Kong Stock Connect Internet index and the CSI 500 index saw declines of 4.84 billion yuan and 78.8B yuan, respectively, with relatively weaker performance.

Looking at year-to-date changes, ETFs tracking the CSI 300 Index saw AUM shrink by 3.04B yuan, with the latest AUM at 213M yuan. ETFs tracking the CSI 1000 and SSE 50 indexes shrank year-to-date by 61.93B yuan and 33.93B yuan, respectively. At the same time, ETFs tracking SGE Gold 9999, sub-industry chemical industry, and the Hang Seng Tech index all saw year-to-date AUM growth exceeding 10 billion yuan: 249M yuan, 72.91B yuan, and 4.79B yuan, respectively.

Who was the weekly “biggest gainer” in incremental inflows?

Regarding management firms, among the TOP20 managers last week, 5 achieved growth in ETF size: Hua’an Fund, Haitong Fortun e Fund? (Please note: original is “海富通基金”), E基金? (Please note: original is “汇添富基金”), Bosera Fund? (Please note: original is “博时基金”), and Yinvestra? (Please note: original is “银华基金”). Changes in last week’s rankings were also mainly driven by these firms. Hua’an Fund, backed by the strong rebound of its gold ETF, regained the 10th place. Huabao Fund correspondingly fell to 11th. Haitong Fortune Fund surpassed Yinvestra? (Please note: original is “银华基金”) to rise to 12th. Other rankings saw no change.

In terms of specific AUM changes, the focus first is Haitong Fortune Fund. Its ETF AUM continued to grow last week by 634.94B yuan. Although it could not retain the title of “biggest gainer,” the growth momentum has not slowed over the past three weeks, with cumulative net inflows of over 17 billion yuan, making it the firm with the largest year-to-date AUM growth. Hua’an Fund staged a “king’s return”: its ETF AUM grew by 550.62B yuan last week, once again becoming the weekly “biggest gainer” in incremental inflows. In addition, Yinvestra’s ETF AUM has increased for three consecutive weeks, though the cumulative growth amount is not large. ETFs at Huifang? (Please note: original is “汇添富基金”) and Bosera Fund grew by 139.3B yuan and 111.35B yuan, respectively, last week.

Xia’s? (Please note: original is “华夏基金”) ETF AUM shrank by 58.69B yuan last week. Bosera? (Please note: original is “华泰柏瑞”), Southern Fund, and E Fund? (Please note: original is “易方达基金”) saw declines of 21.33B yuan, 13.84B yuan, and 4.66B yuan, respectively. The leading institutions still failed to reverse the ongoing shrinking trend. In addition, Huabao Fund and Harvest Fund both saw declines exceeding 5 billion yuan last week.

In terms of year-to-date AUM changes, as of now, 3 firms have increased their ETF AUM by more than 10 billion yuan year-to-date: Haitong Fortune Fund, Guotai Fund, and Hua’an Fund increased by 6.88B yuan, 2.96B yuan, and 1.56B yuan, respectively. Meanwhile, Xia’s Fund, E Fund, and Huatai-Pinebridge Fund’s ETF AUM decreased year-to-date by 11.67B yuan, 9.53B yuan, and 9.38B yuan, respectively. In addition, Southern Fund and Harvest Fund’s ETF AUM decreased year-to-date by 8.83B yuan and 34.46B yuan, respectively.

Gold-themed ETFs rebound collectively

Among the top products, 4 products out of the TOP20 achieved AUM growth last week, and they were all gold-themed ETFs. Meanwhile, last week’s ranking changes for most TOP20 products were also largely driven by gold-themed ETFs. For example, Bosera’s Gold ETF rose from 14th to 13th; E Fund’s Gold ETF rose by 1 position to 15th; and Guotai’s Gold ETF rose by 2 positions to 16th.

In terms of specific AUM changes, gold-themed ETFs rebounded collectively last week. Hua’an Gold ETF grew by 8.65 billion yuan in one week, becoming the “biggest gainer” in incremental inflows for the week. In addition, Guotai Gold ETF, E Fund Gold ETF, and Bosera Gold ETF grew by 15.23B yuan, 10.45B yuan, and 278.75B yuan, respectively.

It is worth noting that last week’s Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 ETF and Franklin CSI Hong Kong Stock Connect Internet ETF shrank by more than 4 billion yuan, and Southern CSI 500 ETF shrank by more than 3 billion yuan—relatively large declines. In terms of year-to-date AUM changes, Hua’an Gold ETF and Guotai Gold ETF both increased by more than 10 billion yuan year-to-date, at 136.5B yuan and 117.07B yuan, respectively. In addition, Bosera Gold ETF and E Fund Gold ETF grew by 2.31B yuan and 2.14B yuan, respectively.

Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 ETF, E Fund CSI 300 ETF, Xia’s CSI 300 ETF, Xia’s SSE 50 ETF, and Harvest CSI 300 ETF shrank year-to-date by 2.01B yuan, 22.62B yuan, 11.96B yuan, 8.16B yuan, and 7.09B yuan, respectively.

Daily Economic News