The details of the "national team's" large-scale increase in holdings were exposed, and medium and long-term funds entered the market to strengthen market confidence

Since the "national team" announced the purchase of ETFs several times in the fourth quarter of last year, the specific targets and allocation of medium and long-term funds have been attracting market attention.

Now, with the release of the 2023 annual report of the public fund, the "mystery" has also been revealed. According to Yicai statistics, Central Huijin Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Central Huijin") increased its holdings of 19.285 billion shares of the fund in the second half of last year, and the amount of this round of holdings may be around 50 billion yuan based on the interval trading volume. From the perspective of specific positions, most of the objects of Central Huijin's increase are broad-based products such as CSI 300 and SSE 50, such as E Fund CSI 300 ETF and ChinaAMC SSE 50 ETF, which increased their positions by more than 10 billion yuan in the second half of the year.

On the whole, the leading role of the "national team" is obvious, not only injecting a certain amount of liquidity and confidence into the market to stop falling and stabilizing, but also other institutional investors have also increased their positions, and the equity ETF market has ushered in a large amount of funds.

Central Huijin bought these ETFs

In the fourth quarter of last year, the Shanghai Composite Index mostly hovered below 3,000 points. With Central Huijin, Guoxin Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guoxin Investment") and other "national team players" successively announcing their holdings of ETFs, equity ETFs have ushered in a large number of "bullets", and incremental funds have entered the market one after another.

On October 23, 2023, after Central Huijin announced the purchase of ETF products, the trading volume of the equity ETF market increased significantly. Wind data shows that the total net inflow of equity ETFs exceeded 14 billion yuan that week, and as of December 31, the cumulative net inflow of equity ETFs reached 111.698 billion yuan.

So, what products did the "national team" buy? With the disclosure of the 2023 annual report of the public fund, the relevant situation is also clear. Wind data shows that by the end of 2023, Central Huijin held a total of 9 ETF products, with a total of 40.13 billion shares, with an average holding ratio of 34.6%.

Compared with the data disclosed in last year's interim report, the share of funds held by Central Huijin has increased by 19.285 billion shares, mainly for broad-based products such as CSI 300 and SSE 50. Based on the rough calculation of the trading price of each product in the fourth quarter of last year, the amount of Central Huijin's increase in holdings in this round may be about 50 billion yuan.

From the perspective of specific products, the CSI 300 ETF product is undoubtedly the first choice for Central Huijin to enter the market. Among them, the newly included E Fund CSI 300 ETF was held with 6.146 billion shares. So far, Central Huijin, which has a position of 21.09%, has also become the second largest holder of this product. Based on the interval transaction price, the purchase amount exceeded 10 billion yuan.

Except for E Fund CSI 300 ETF, the largest holder of the remaining 8 products is Central Huijin. In the second half of last year, Central Huijin increased its holdings in four of these products. Among them, the largest number of holdings was the ChinaAMC SSE 50 ETF, which increased by 5.615 billion shares compared with the interim data.

According to the annual report data, ChinaAMC SSE 50 ETF is also the product with the largest number of funds currently held by Central Huijin, holding a total of 12.361 billion shares as of the end of December, with a share of more than 80% in half a year, and its holding ratio has also risen from 29.73% to 36.39%. It is also estimated based on the interval trading volume, and the increase in holdings exceeds 13.5 billion yuan.

At the same time, Central Huijin also increased its holdings in Huatai Pineapple CSI 300 ETF, ChinaAMC CSI 300 ETF, Harvest CSI 300 ETF and other products, increasing the number of holdings by 3.823 billion, 1.102 billion and 2.599 billion respectively. Based on the average transaction price, the three spent a total of nearly 27 billion yuan.

In addition, Central Huijin's holdings of Huaan SSE 180 ETF, Cathay SSE 180 Financial ETF, CSI 500 ETF, and E Fund SZSE 100 ETF remained unchanged, holding 5.232 billion shares, 2.564 billion shares, 1.98 billion shares, and 25 million shares respectively.

Guoxin Investment is another "national team player" who announced an increase in holdings in early December last year, focusing on the CSI Guoxin Central Enterprises Technology Index Fund. Wind data shows that as of the end of December last year, Guoxin Investment held a total of 5 ETF products. Among them, the CSI Guoxin Central Enterprises Technology Leading ETF has the largest share, reaching 1.039 billion shares.

Guoxin Investment also holds Bosera Central Enterprises Innovation Driven ETF (609 million shares), Bosera CSI Guoxin Central Enterprises Modern Energy ETF (166 million shares), and Fuguo CSI Central Enterprises Innovation Driven ETF (10 million shares). In addition, there is another one is Huaxia China Communications Construction Expressway REIT (23 million shares).

The leading role of the "national team" is obvious

Location determines influence. In the eyes of industry insiders, the "national team" represented by Central Huijin has increased its holdings of real money on dips, releasing a strong signal of caring for the market, not only bringing incremental funds to the market, but also playing an exemplary role in long-term capital entering the market, driving more incremental funds to enter the market.

In fact, judging from the disclosure in the annual report, the leading role of the "national team" is obvious, and other institutional investors are also silently increasing their positions. Judging from the list of the top 10 holders of some ETF products, institutional investors such as insurance funds and brokerages have become important "buyers". Wind data shows that as of the end of December last year, the top five holders of listed funds were all from institutional investors such as Central Huijin, insurance, and banks.

Taking E Fund CSI 300 ETF as an example, institutional holders of the fund hold 25.554 billion shares, accounting for 87.69% of the total shares. Among the top ten holders, in addition to Central Huijin, there are many institutions such as Ping An Life, Chinese Life, AIA Life, Dajia Life and Haitong Securities. Among them, Ping An Life's own funds increased from 567 million to 1.37 billion, an increase of more than 800 million, while Haitong Securities was newly promoted to the top 10 holders, holding 341 million shares.

From another dimension, we can also see that the allocation of institutions has improved. Wind data shows that among the 689 equity ETF products with data for 2023, the number of products with institutional investors accounting for more than 60% has increased to 262, accounting for 38%, compared with 220 in the previous year.

"Medium and long-term funds, including social security funds, insurance companies, enterprise annuities, personal pensions, foreign capital, etc., are expected to become incremental funds to promote the growth of stock ETFs. An equity fund manager in North China told reporters that stock ETFs are still in a period of development opportunities, the penetration rate is still relatively low, and there is still a lot of room for development for long-term funds to enter the market.

It is worth noting that the layout of the "national team" does not stop at broad-based ETF products. For example, the investment direction of the single asset management plan entrusted by Huijin Asset Management to public offering institutions is more biased towards industry-themed products.

Yicai combed through the data of the 2023 fund annual report and found that as of the end of December 2023, Central Huijin Asset Management Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Central Huijin, held a total of 38 products through a single asset management plan directly held or jointly established with public fund managers, with a total position of 10.567 billion shares.

Judging from the holdings of the above two asset management plans, in the second half of the year, they mainly increased their holdings in pharmaceutical, robot, electronics, computer, coal and other industry ETFs, such as E Fund CSI 300 Medical and Health ETF, CSI Shenwan Nonferrous Metals ETF, and GF CSI Overseas China Internet 30 ETF, all of which increased their holdings by more than 100 million.

More money "runs" into the market

Since the beginning of this year, the impact of "boosting the market" has continued, and the momentum of capital entry has not decreased, with hundreds of billions of funds entering the market with the help of ETFs. Wind data shows that as of the close of trading on February 5, the market-wide equity ETF products have once again had a net inflow of 234.105 billion yuan since 2024.

On February 6, Central Huijin once again injected confidence into the market and announced that it would expand the scope of ETF holdings, and continue to increase its holdings and expand the scale of its holdings. At the same time, the China Securities Regulatory Commission also said that it will continue to coordinate and guide various institutional investors such as public funds, private equity funds, securities companies, social security funds, insurance institutions, and annuity funds to enter the market more vigorously.

After these multiple positive signals were issued, funds entered the market even more, with a net inflow of nearly 67 billion yuan in three trading days. Wind data shows that as of April 1, equity ETF products have "absorbed" nearly 330 billion yuan this year.

Among them, broad-based ETFs with market influence and representativeness are naturally more likely to be favored, with more than 260 billion yuan of funds received during the year, and products with more than 50 billion yuan of gold absorption are all CSI 300 ETFs, for example, E Fund CSI 300 ETF had a net inflow of 81.178 billion yuan during the year.

The large-scale increase of funds has also skyrocketed the scale of ETF products, and the scale of many ETF products has repeatedly broken new highs and entered the 100 billion club one after another. Wind data shows that as of April 1, the fund size of Huatai Pineapple CSI 300 ETF, E Fund CSI 300 ETF, ChinaAMC SSE 50 ETF, and Harvest CSI 300 ETF has exceeded 100 billion yuan.

In the eyes of industry insiders, in addition to the above-mentioned impact, behind the acceleration of the development of ETF products, it also means that A-shares are moving towards a strong and efficient market. "In such a market, all publicly available information is quickly and fairly fully reflected in the stock price, in other words, the basis of the alpha that can be generated by active management has changed. An institutional investment researcher in South China said.

Judging from the results, a large number of incremental funds have entered the market, which has boosted investors' risk appetite and broken the negative feedback of funds brought about by the rising risk aversion in the market in the early stage, and the market has also recovered. According to the data, as of the close of trading on April 2, the Shanghai Composite Index has rebounded by 13.8% since February 6.

Standing at the current point in time, Yang Gang, chief economist of the Golden Eagle Fund, told reporters that under the support of fundamentals, although the structure shows the characteristics of industry rotation and high and low switching, the overall market has not been significantly adjusted. "Entering April, the market may experience a confirmation/falsification test of performance factors such as quarterly results. He said.

(This article is from Yicai)