Falling below 5 trillion yuan! The entire market's ETF assets have shrunk by over 1 trillion yuan this year, and gold products are making a comeback | ETF Weekly Scale Report

From March 30 to April 3, the A-share market continued to adjust. Major indices first rose and then fell. The CSI 300 Index fell 1.37% for the week, the CSI A500 Index declined 1.76%, and the STAR Market 50 Index dropped 3.42%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index stabilized and rebounded; it rose 0.66% this week. However, tech stocks continued to decline, and the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 2.07%.

In this week’s ETF market, it can be described as a classic “seesaw”行情. On one side, major equity indices such as A-shares and Hong Kong tech continued to adjust, “hammering” the total scale of ETFs across the market down through the 5 trillion yuan threshold, and stock ETFs alone bled more than 1 trillion yuan year-to-date. On the other side, risk-avoidant capital went on a frenzy of exits and once again poured into gold and bonds.

Against this backdrop, the ETF market has returned to the rule of “he who has gold has the world.” Gold-related ETFs directly dominated the top four in the single-product net increase list: Huaan Gold ETF grabbed 8.6 billion yuan in a single week. In addition, bond ETFs have continued to be favored by risk-averse capital; Haitong Prosperity Fund pulled in a massive 17 billion yuan in the past three weeks against the trend.

Stock ETFs shrank by more than 1 trillion yuan year-to-date

This week, the equity market continued to adjust. Stock ETFs shrank by 78.8 billion yuan, and net outflows year-to-date exceeded 1 trillion yuan. Although both commodities and the bond market rebounded, the total ETF scale across the market fell below 5 trillion yuan, shrinking to 4.98 trillion yuan. In terms of number of products, data from Wind shows that as of April 5, this week saw 16 newly added ETFs, including 12 stock ETFs and the remaining 4 cross-border ETFs. As a result, the total number of listed ETFs reached 1,475.

Regarding specific changes in scale, commodity ETFs and bond ETFs grew by 50k yuan and 10k yuan, respectively this week, becoming major safe harbors for funds amid risk-avoidant sentiment. However, under the seesaw effect, capital in the equity market showed a sustained outflow trend: stock ETFs and cross-border ETFs shrank by 10k yuan and 50k yuan, respectively. Money market ETFs saw a slight decline of 0.213 billion yuan.

So far this year, as of April 5, total net outflows of ETFs across the market year-to-date amounted to 1,041.337 billion yuan. Among them, stock ETFs have already seen net outflows of more than 1 trillion yuan year-to-date. Bond ETFs’ net outflows narrowed to 49.8k yuan, while cross-border ETFs’ net outflows were 18.09B yuan year-to-date. On the other hand, commodity ETFs grew by 10.5B yuan year-to-date, while money market ETFs saw a slight decline of 0.249 billion yuan.

SGE Gold 9999 Index-linked ETFs grow by 16.5 billion yuan

In terms of index-linked ETFs, among the TOP20 index-linked products this week, only 4 indices still achieved growth in scale, while ETF scale contracted for broad-based index-linked products ranked near the top.

Specifically, the 4 leading indices whose index-linked ETFs achieved growth in scale this week were SGE Gold 9999, Nasdaq 100, Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovation Drugs, and the Dividend Low Volatility Index. Among them, ETFs linked to the SGE Gold 9999 Index grew by 16.56 billion yuan, mainly driven by the strong rebound in gold-related ETFs this week. ETFs linked to the Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovation Drugs Index also grew by more than 5 billion yuan, performing best among the equity indices, benefiting from a collective rally in Hong Kong’s biotech and pharmaceutical stocks this week.

On the other hand, this week, two broad-based index-linked ETFs saw their scale decline by more than 10 billion yuan. The CSI A500 Index became this week’s “shrinking king,” with a weekly shrinkage of more than 13 billion yuan; the CSI 300 Index declined by 11.8 billion yuan. In addition, ETFs linked to Hong Kong Stock Connect Internet and the CSI 500 Index shrank by 4.84 billion yuan and 78.8B yuan, respectively, also relatively weak performance.

In terms of year-to-date changes, the scale decline of ETFs linked to the CSI 300 Index reached 3.04B yuan, with the latest scale at 213M yuan. Over the year-to-date period, ETFs linked to the CSI 1000 and SSE 50 indices saw scale declines of 61.93B yuan and 33.93B yuan, respectively. On the other hand, ETFs linked to SGE Gold 9999, the subdivided chemical industry, and the Hang Seng Tech Index grew by more than 10 billion yuan year-to-date, at 72.91B yuan, 21.33 billion yuan, and 249M yuan, respectively.

Haitong Prosperity Fund attracted more than 17 billion yuan cumulatively over the past three weeks

On the fund-management side, among the TOP20 managers this week, 5 achieved growth in ETF scale: Huaan Fund, Haitong Prosperity Fund, Fullgoal Fund, Bosera Fund, and Yinvesco Fund. The changes in rankings this week were also mainly driven by these managers. Specifically, Huaan Fund reclaimed the top 10 thanks to the strong rebound of its gold ETFs; Huabao Fund correspondingly slipped to No. 11. Haitong Prosperity Fund overtook Yinvesco Fund to rise to No. 12, while other rankings saw no change.

In terms of specific changes in scale, first, still focus on Haitong Prosperity Fund. The company’s ETF scale continued to grow this week by 4.79B yuan. Although it failed to remain the “net-inflow king” this time, the momentum of sustained growth over the past three weeks did not slow down; it cumulatively attracted more than 17 billion yuan, making it the manager with the largest year-to-date scale growth. Huaan Fund staged a “return of the king”: its ETF scale grew by 634.94B yuan this week, again becoming the weekly “net-inflow king.” In addition, Yinvesco Fund’s ETF scale has also been growing for three consecutive weeks, though the cumulative increase is not large. Fullgoal Fund and Bosera Fund’s ETF scales grew by 550.62B yuan and 139.3B yuan, respectively, this week.

On the other hand, Xia Fund’s ETF scale shrank by 111.35B yuan this week. Huatai-Pinebridge, Southern Fund, and E Fund each shrank by 58.69B 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 also saw their shrinkage exceed 5 billion yuan this week.

In terms of year-to-date scale changes, as of now, three institutions have year-to-date ETF growth of more than 10 billion yuan: Haitong Prosperity Fund, Guotai Fund, and Huaan Fund increased by 34.46 billion yuan, 6.88B yuan, and 10.45 billion yuan, respectively. On the other hand, Xia Fund, E Fund, and Huatai-Pinebridge ETFs saw year-to-date shrinkage of 2.96B yuan, 1.56B yuan, and 11.67B yuan, respectively. In addition, Southern Fund and Harvest Fund’s ETF scales shrank by 9.53B yuan and 9.38B yuan, respectively, year-to-date.

Huaan Gold ETF grows by 8.65 billion yuan this week

Regarding leading products, of the TOP20 products this week, 4 achieved scale growth—all of them are gold ETFs. Meanwhile, changes in the TOP20 products’ rankings this week are largely driven by gold ETFs. For example, Bosera Gold ETF moved up from No. 14 to No. 13, E Fund’s Gold ETF rose by 1 position to No. 15, and Guotai Gold ETF climbed by 2 positions to No. 16.

Specifically, gold ETFs collectively rebounded this week. Huaan Gold ETF grew by 8.65 billion yuan over one week, becoming this week’s “net-inflow king.” In addition, Guotai Gold ETF, E Fund’s Gold ETF, and Bosera Gold ETF grew by 8.83B yuan, 15.23B yuan, and 278.75B yuan, respectively.

On the other hand, this week’s Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 ETF and Fullgoal CSI Hong Kong Stock Connect Internet ETF shrank by more than 4 billion yuan. Southern CSI 500 ETF shrank by more than 3 billion yuan, with relatively larger shrinkage amounts.

In terms of year-to-date scale changes, Huaan Gold ETF and Guotai Gold ETF both saw year-to-date growth of more than 10 billion yuan, at 136.5B yuan and 117.07B yuan, respectively. In addition, Bosera Gold ETF and E Fund’s Gold ETF grew by 2.31B yuan and 2.14B yuan, respectively.

On the other hand, Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 ETF, E Fund’s CSI 300 ETF, Xia CSI 300 ETF, Xia SSE 50 ETF, and Harvest CSI 300 ETF saw year-to-date shrinkage amounts of 2.01B yuan, 22.62B yuan, 11.96B yuan, 8.16B yuan, and 7.09B yuan, respectively.

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