ETF Competition Landscape Shifts: Largest Product Changes Hands, Related Companies' Rankings Flip

◎ Reporter Zhao Mingchao

The landscape of the ETF market is quietly changing — the throne of the largest ETF in the entire market has changed hands, and the competition for the top four positions in the industry is becoming increasingly fierce.

In the view of industry insiders, the current battle around index investing is full of variables. With the subsequent listing of active ETFs, the empowerment of AI investment tools, and the iteration of investors' allocation concepts, industry competition will shift from a pure product and scale competition to a comprehensive contest of strategy capabilities, operational services, and overall allocation capabilities.

Gold-themed product tops ETF scale ranking

Choice data shows that as of July 3, the total ETF scale was 4.67 trillion yuan. Among them, Gold ETF HuaAn surpassed CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge to become the largest ETF in the entire market. The latter had been at the top of the ETF scale ranking for many years, with its peak scale exceeding 430 billion yuan.

The above reversal occurred on July 3 — on July 2, the scale of Gold ETF HuaAn was 46.7k yuan, and the scale of CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge was 87.16B yuan; on July 3, the scale of Gold ETF HuaAn increased by 2.32%, and CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge slightly increased by 0.54%.

As of July 3, there were a total of 122 ETFs with a scale exceeding 89.88B yuan in the entire market, of which 11 had a scale exceeding 50 billion yuan. In addition to the above two, those with a scale exceeding 60 billion yuan included Short-Term Financing ETF Haitong, Yinhua Rili ETF, Huabao Tianyi ETF, STAR 50 ETF China Asset Management, and Securities ETF Guotai.

At the end of the first quarter of this year, the number of ETFs with a scale exceeding 113.82B yuan was 117. Although the number of hundred-billion-level ETFs has increased since the second quarter, the scale of some leading ETFs has shrunk. For example: as of July 3, the scale of Gold ETF HuaAn fell from 90.1B yuan at the end of the first quarter to 199.91B yuan; CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge fell from 83.33B yuan to 78.34B yuan; Short-Term Financing ETF Haitong fell from 14.47B yuan to 53.04B yuan.

At the same time, the scale of some industry-themed ETFs has grown significantly. For example: as of July 3, the scale of Communications ETF Guotai increased from 19.32B yuan at the end of the first quarter to 42.3B yuan; Semiconductor Equipment ETF Guotai increased from 38.61B yuan to 57.25B yuan; STAR Chip ETF Harvest increased from 14.31B yuan to 405.22B yuan.

Looking at the longer timeline, the flow of funds into ETFs shows a significant divergence. Choice data shows that as of July 3, since the second quarter, Communications ETF Guotai has seen a net inflow of 32.33 billion yuan, and Urban Investment Bond ETF Haitong has seen a net inflow of 303.44B yuan. In addition, Communications ETF China Asset Management, 30-Year Treasury Bond ETF Pengyang, STAR Semiconductor ETF China Asset Management, and Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge have all seen net inflows exceeding 8 billion yuan. During the same period, CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge, CSI 300 ETF E Fund, CSI 300 ETF Harvest, and CSI 300 ETF China Asset Management have all seen net outflows exceeding 60 billion yuan.

Intense competition in company rankings

The rankings of fund companies' ETF management scale have also been changing recently.

Data shows: at the end of the first quarter, Huatai-PineBridge Fund's ETF management scale was 288.45B yuan, ranking third; Guotai Asset Management was 585.38B yuan, ranking fourth. Based on the latest situation, Guotai Asset Management has overtaken: as of July 3, Guotai Asset Management's ETF management scale was 369.57 billion yuan, ranking third; Huatai-PineBridge Fund was 568.74B yuan, falling to fourth place.

Behind the ranking swap of these two fund companies is the "bleeding" of broad-based ETFs and the "absorbing" of industry-themed ETFs.

The popular single products under Huatai-PineBridge Fund are mainly broad-based ETFs. As of July 3, since the second quarter, the scale of CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge has shrunk by over 100 billion yuan, and the scale of Hang Seng Tech ETF Huatai-PineBridge has decreased by over 200B yuan.

Guotai Asset Management, on the other hand, has laid out early in industry-themed ETFs. In this round of technology stock market, related products have attracted significant capital inflows. For example, as of July 3, since the second quarter, the total scale of Securities ETF Guotai, Communications ETF Guotai, and Semiconductor Equipment ETF Guotai has increased by over 70 billion yuan.

The competition for the top two positions in the industry is also fierce. On June 4, E Fund's ETF management scale surpassed China Asset