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

Each Daily Reporter | Peng Shuiping    Each Daily Editor | Zhao Yun

Last week (March 30~April 3), China A-shares continued to pull back. The major indices initially rose and then fell: the CSI 300 Index fell 1.37%, the CSI A500 Index fell 1.76%, and the STAR 50 Index fell 3.42%; in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index steadied and rebounded. It rose 0.66% over the week, but internet and tech stocks kept declining, and the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 2.07%.

In the ETF market last week (exchange-traded open-ended index funds), it was arguably a classic “seesaw” move. On one side, major indices such as China A-shares and Hang Seng Tech kept adjusting downward, forcing the total ETF market size to slip below the 5-trillion-yuan threshold across the board. Within the year, equity ETFs even saw net outflows of more than 1 trillion yuan. On the other side, risk-averse capital fled aggressively and once again poured into gold and bonds.

Against this backdrop, last week’s ETF market returned to “those who get gold get the world.” Gold-themed ETFs directly took the top four spots on the single-product net increase leaderboard. In one week, the Hu an Gold ETF amassed RMB 8.6 billion.

16 new ETFs added last week

With equity markets continuing to adjust last week, equity ETFs shrank by RMB 78.8 billion, with year-to-date outflows of more than RMB 1 trillion. Although commodity and bond ETF markets both rebounded, the total ETF market size across the board fell below RMB 5 trillion, dropping to RMB 498 billion. According to Wind data, last week saw 16 new ETFs added, of which 12 were equity ETFs and the remaining 4 were cross-border ETFs. By then, the total number of listed ETFs reached 1,475.

In terms of specific scale changes, commodity ETFs and bond ETFs grew by RMB 50k and RMB 10k, respectively, becoming the main safe haven for funds under risk-aversion sentiment. However, under the “seesaw” effect, capital continued to flow out from the equity market. Equity ETFs and cross-border ETFs shrank by RMB 10k and RMB 50k, respectively; money market ETFs saw a slight decline of RMB 0.213 billion.

Since the start of this year (as of April 5), the total net reduction of ETFs across the market reached RMB 1,041.337 billion. Of this, equity ETFs had already shrunk by RMB 1,018.140 billion, bond ETFs by RMB 49.8k, cross-border ETFs by RMB 18.09B, and money market ETFs declined slightly by RMB 0.249 billion. Meanwhile, commodity ETFs’ scale increased by RMB 10.5B.

Who was the “shrinkage king” last week?

For ETFs tracking major indexes, among the TOP20 indexes last week, only 4 indexes achieved scale growth. They were SGE Gold 9999, the Nasdaq 100, the Hang Seng China Connect Innovative Drugs index, and the Dividend Low Volatility index. Of these, the SGE Gold 9999 index-tracking ETFs grew by RMB 16.56 billion, mainly driven by the strong rebound in gold ETFs last week. The Hang Seng China Connect Innovative Drugs index-tracking ETF scale also rose by over RMB 5 billion, benefiting from the collective surge of Hong Kong-listed biopharmaceutical stocks last week.

Two broad-market index-tracking ETFs saw scale declines of over RMB 10 billion last week. The CSI A500 index became the “shrinkage king,” with a weekly shrinkage of over RMB 13 billion; the CSI 300 index shrank by RMB 11.8 billion. In addition, ETFs tracking Hang Seng China Connect Internet and the CSI 500 index saw declines of RMB 4.84 billion and RMB 78.8B, respectively, which were also relatively weak in performance.

From year-to-date changes, ETFs tracking the CSI 300 index shrank by RMB 3.04B, with the latest scale at RMB 213M. ETFs tracking the CSI 1000 and SSE 50 indexes saw year-to-date shrinkages of RMB 61.93B and RMB 33.93B, respectively. At the same time, ETFs tracking SGE Gold 9999, sub-segment chemical industry, and the Hang Seng Tech index all grew by over RMB 10 billion year-to-date, at RMB 249M, RMB 72.91B, and RMB 4.79B, respectively.

Who was the weekly “increment king”?

In terms of fund managers, among the TOP20 managers last week, 5 achieved ETF scale growth: Hu an Fund, Haitong Fund, Harvest Fund, Bosera Fund, and Yinhe Fund. The ranking changes last week were also mainly driven by these institutions. Specifically, Hu an Fund reclaimed 10th place thanks to the strong rebound in its gold ETF. Huabao Fund correspondingly fell to 11th. Haitong Fund surpassed Yinhe Fund to rise to 12th, while other rankings saw no changes.

Regarding specific scale changes, first look at Haitong Fund. Its ETF scale continued to grow last week by RMB 634.94B. Although it could not secure the “increment king” title again, its growth momentum did not ease over the past three weeks. It accumulated “net inflows” of over RMB 17 billion and became the institution with the most scale growth for the year to date. Hu an Fund staged a “king returning to form.” Last week, its ETF scale grew by RMB 139.3B, once again becoming the weekly “increment king.” In addition, Yinhe Fund’s ETF scale has also been growing for three consecutive weeks, though the cumulative growth amount was not large. Harvest Fund’s and Bosera Fund’s ETF scales grew by RMB 111.35B and RMB 58.69B, respectively, last week.

Huaxia Fund’s ETF scale shrank by RMB 21.33B last week. Huatai-PineBridge, Southern Fund, and E-fund each shrank by RMB 13.84B, RMB 4.66B, and RMB 6.88B, respectively. Leading institutions still failed to reverse the trend of continuous shrinkage. In addition, Huabao Fund and Bosera Fund also saw shrinkages of more than RMB 5 billion last week.

For year-to-date scale changes, as of now, 3 institutions have seen year-to-date ETF scale increases of over RMB 10 billion. Haitong Fund, Guotai Fund, and Hu an Fund increased by RMB 2.96B, RMB 1.56B, and RMB 11.67B, respectively. Meanwhile, Huaxia Fund, E-fund, and Huatai-PineBridge Fund’s ETF scales decreased by RMB 9.53B, RMB 9.38B, and RMB 8.83B, respectively. In addition, Southern Fund and Harvest Fund saw year-to-date ETF scale declines of RMB 34.46B and RMB 15.23B, respectively.

Gold-themed ETFs rebound collectively

Among the top products, in the TOP20 last week, 4 products achieved scale growth, all of which were gold-themed ETFs. Meanwhile, ranking changes among 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 scale changes, gold-themed ETFs rebounded collectively last week. Hu an Gold ETF grew by RMB 8.65 billion in a week, becoming the “increment king” of last week. In addition, Guotai Gold ETF, E-fund Gold ETF, and Bosera Gold ETF increased by RMB 10.45B, RMB 278.75B, and RMB 136.5B, respectively.

It is worth noting that last week, Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF and Fullgoal CSI Hong Kong Connect Internet ETF shrank by more than RMB 4 billion. Southern CSI 500 ETF shrank by more than RMB 3 billion, with relatively large shrinkage amounts. In terms of year-to-date scale changes, Hu an Gold ETF and Guotai Gold ETF both increased by more than RMB 10 billion, at RMB 117.07B and RMB 2.31B, respectively. In addition, Bosera Gold ETF and E-fund Gold ETF grew by RMB 2.14B and RMB 2.01B, respectively.

Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF, E-fund CSI 300 ETF, Huaxia CSI 300 ETF, Huaxia SSE 50 ETF, and Harvest CSI 300 ETF saw year-to-date shrinkages of RMB 22.62B, RMB 11.96B, RMB 8.16B, RMB 7.09B, and RMB 222.6B, respectively.

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