Most insurance companies plan to slightly increase their allocation to A-shares this year

Our reporter, Leng Cuihua

The China Banking and Insurance Asset Management Association (hereinafter referred to as the “Banking and Insurance Asset Management Industry Association”) recently released the “Insurance Institutions’ 2026 Asset Allocation Outlook Survey Results,” which show that insurance institutions are generally optimistic about domestic investment assets this year, particularly stocks and securities investment funds. Most insurance institutions are quite optimistic about the A-share market in 2026 and plan to slightly increase their allocation to A-shares. Additionally, the most favored overseas investment products in 2026 are Hong Kong stocks, with gold and U.S. stocks also attracting significant attention from insurance institutions.

Furthermore, the Banking and Insurance Asset Management Industry Association’s investment confidence index for the banking and insurance asset management industry indicates a notable rise in confidence in equity investments.

Overseas Investment Favoring Hong Kong Stocks

The association states that this survey emphasizes “asset allocation” more prominently. A total of 127 insurance institutions participated in the feedback, including 36 insurance asset management firms and 91 insurance companies.

The survey results show that, in terms of major asset allocation, stocks and securities investment funds are the most favored domestic investment assets for 2026. Most insurance institutions expect the allocation ratios for bank deposits, bonds, securities investment funds, and other financial assets to remain roughly the same as in 2025, with some institutions willing to moderately or slightly increase their stock investments.

Specifically, 64.86% of insurance asset management firms plan to slightly or moderately increase their stock allocations, and 62.63% of insurance companies make the same choice.

Regarding bonds, most insurance institutions hold a neutral outlook for the bond market in 2026. For interest-rate bonds, they expect the 10-year government bond yield to be between 1.8% and 1.9%, and the 30-year government bond yield to be between 2.2% and 2.4%. For credit bonds, over half of the institutions expect the yield of high-grade credit bonds to center around 2.0% to 2.5%, with overall credit spreads likely to fluctuate. In 2026, insurance institutions favor high-grade corporate bonds, bank perpetual bonds, secondary capital bonds, and convertible bonds. The main duration strategy is to maintain the current overall duration, focusing on bonds with maturities from 10 to 30 years.

In terms of overseas investments, Hong Kong stocks are the most favored in 2026. Gold and U.S. stocks also attract considerable attention. In terms of operational preferences, half of the insurance asset management firms plan to slightly increase their Hong Kong stock holdings, while 40% of insurance companies intend to maintain their current Hong Kong stock allocations.

Focus Areas for A-Share Investment

Regarding A-shares, the survey indicates that most insurance institutions are optimistic about the A-share market in 2026 and plan to slightly increase their holdings. They believe that this year, the focus will be on two main themes: new productive forces and economic recovery.

Specifically, in terms of sectors, insurance institutions favor the STAR 50, CSI 300, CSI A500, and ChiNext; in industries, they prefer electronics, non-ferrous metals, electrical equipment, computers, communications, pharmaceuticals, and basic chemicals; in investment themes, they focus on semiconductors, national defense and military industry, AI computing power, robotics, energy metals, commercial aerospace, high dividends, pharmaceuticals, and innovative drugs. All agree that corporate earnings recovery and liquidity environment are the main factors influencing the A-share market this year.

In fund investments, nearly half of the insurance institutions plan to slightly increase their holdings of public funds in 2026. Among these, insurance asset management firms favor equity funds, secondary bond funds, mixed funds with a bias toward stocks, index funds, and ETFs; insurance companies prefer secondary bond funds, equity funds, mixed funds, growth funds, and ETFs.

A representative from Everbright Yongming Asset Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Everbright Yongming Assets”) told Securities Daily, “We mainly focus on the two main themes of new productive forces and economic recovery, and aim to grasp certainty through rotation.” The new productive forces theme is their core focus, concentrating on technological innovation and high-end manufacturing with real technological breakthroughs and performance potential. Along the economic recovery theme, they will focus on sectors with bottoming-out profit prospects, such as cyclical industries. The representative added that with the deepening of policies against “involution” and the global demand bottoming out, the supply-demand pattern in some midstream manufacturing sectors will improve, and they are optimistic about the profit rebound opportunities in chemicals, new energy (such as energy storage), and other fields.

Lu Xiaoyue, founder of Yanshu Asset Management, told Securities Daily that under the consensus of a “slow bull” and structural market trends, the two main themes of technology growth and resource commodities are expected to run throughout the year. If economic data continues to improve, cyclically driven sectors like consumer stocks may also see valuation shifts and phased opportunities. He recommends focusing on AI industry chains and high-end manufacturing within the technology growth theme, and on industrial metals like copper, aluminum, tin, as well as strategic resources like rare earths and lithium within the resource theme.