在中国股市遭遇持续低迷的背景下，明星基金经理面临投资失利的局面，让投资者蒙受了损失，并导致主动型基金资产从巅峰值下滑约40%。然而，在这个市场中，有那么一片天地正在蓬勃发展——那就是交易所交易基金(ETF)。如今，被动型投资力量已经成为了价值8.1万亿美元股票市场的主导之一，相关产品占所有侧重于股票的基金资产总额接近45%。
这一比例在过去三年几乎翻了一倍，并且正迅速追赶上美国市场。在美国和欧洲的“被动革命”耗费数十年时间才取得相似成果之际，中国ETF市场的繁荣形成了鲜明对比，反映了投资者对专业选股者的失望情绪，以及为遏制损失而涌入政府支持资金的行为。
ETF被中国官方视为重要工具的选择，对于希望与政府政策保持一致的投资者来说，它成为了一个有吸引力且成本低廉的手段。中国政府通过ETF推动市场策略，令这些产品在寻求参与热门主题投资，如红利股票等时变得越来越受欢迎。
据《彭博社》报道，在2024年中，主动型股票基金的表现令人失望，平均回撤了13.9%，而根据中国指数公司的跟踪记录，这远高于基准的CSI 300指数6.4%的损失。投资者纷纷大举减持。从2021年底到今年六月，国内主投主动管理策略的基金资产缩水约40%，即减少了2.2万亿元至3.2万亿元；相反，被动型投资基金在同期内增长了63%，达到2.77万亿元，其中至少有70%是ETF。
回顾过去几年，中国市场曾被一些人称为“天堂”般之地。庞大的股票市场——超过5,000家上市企业以及热火朝天的交易活动，尤其是对于活跃型管理策略而言，构成了极富活力的土壤。然而，现在的景象已大不相同：在股市波动性、地缘政治不确定性及房地产持续低迷的影响下，投资者发现难以超越市场的表现。
名噪一时的基金经理们如今风光不再。2020-2021年的大牛市时期曾经令李春春等明星基金经理风头正劲，但随着市场步入熊市，他们面临着巨大的挑战。《东钱》信息公司的一则评论显示了投资者对于管理由Invesco Great Wall Blue-Chip Growth Mixed Fund的基金经理导致损失的愤怒。
在中国股票市场的长期下滑中，并非ETF资产就安全无恙。数据显示，该年度内超过1/3的ETF类基金回撤超13.3%，与主动型基金相近，表现仅略好一些。然而，零售投资者仍倾向于ETF作为成本低、操作便捷的投资工具，尤其是在追求如红利股票等与北京政策目标相一致的主题投资时。
在政府的支持下，国家主权财富基金中央汇金在今年市场低点大举买入ETF，尤其是当CSHI 300指数跌至五年的最低点时。据《彭博社》情报分析员指出，由所谓的“国家队”购买的ETF占今年流入资金总额逾80%，共计1080亿美元。
中国零售投资者对ETF的兴趣同样激增，在产品发布数据显示，今年第二季度新发行的股票主打被动基金数量达到117只，领先于主动型基金的75只，这是自2004年以来首次实现连续两个季度领跑。
《彭博社》情报部门预计，亚太地区将创造历史纪录，年内ETF新增上市数量为520个，其中中国占据了总发行量的一半以上。市场观察家指出，ETF的迅速采用有可能颠覆基金行业，并带来新的风险。尽管股市低迷，ETF产品仍能吸引资金，其大规模存在和倾向于持有大市值股票以及低廉费用的情况，为零售投资者提供与股票类似的投资工具。
“ETF的广泛使用在增强流动性的同时也增加了市场的波动性。”Grow Investment Group首席经济学家表示，“这种模式在美国市场中同样可见：较高的ETF持股比例会加快上升趋势的速度，并在下跌时加剧幅度。”
面对中国股市持续低迷的局面，人们预期ETF资产将继续增长。与美国相比，被动基金在股票型基金中的份额从约30%逐渐升至50%，大约花费了10年时间；在中国，这个数字在过去十年大部分时间内维持在20%-30%之间，直到今年首次突破40%，并于6月底达到了45%，接近英国的44%，据彭博统计的数据显示。
“ETF市场的增长是一种自我实现的过程。”一位管理着最大的国内ETF——中证300 ETF的Huatai-Pinebridge负责人如此说道。“随着信息通过短视频和其他媒体形式的传播，投资者做出决策的自主性增强。ETF加速了投资决策分散化的过程。”
优化后的翻译版本注重简洁、紧凑和符合中文阅读习惯的语言风格，并保持原文的关键信息与事实不变。
新闻来源：www.bloomberg.com
原文地址：China Stock Pickers Lose $312 Billion of Assets in Shift to ETFs
新闻日期：2024-09-23
原文摘要：
A relentless slump in Chinese equities has pushed star money managers , left investors saddled with losses and driven a 40% drawdown in active fund assets from their peak. Yet one corner of the market has been booming.Exponential growth in exchange-traded funds has made passive investing an influential force in the $8.1 trillion stock , with such products now accounting for about 45% of all equity-focused fund assets. The ratio has doubled in just three years and is fast catching up with the US, where passive equity strategies command 58% of market share after the active ones in 2019. The rapid upswing in China stands out given that the so-called passive revolution took hold over decades in the US and Europe. The boom is a stark reflection of investors’ disenchantment with professional stock pickers as the market heads for an unprecedented fourth straight annual drop, as well as an influx by state funds seeking to arrest losses. The emergence of ETFs as the preferred tool for Chinese authorities to has made them an important choice for investors looking to align with the government’s agenda. Read more: “Index investing is being embraced by individual investors and institutions alike and is a trend that’s likely to extend,” said , executive director at China Asset Management Co., the biggest onshore manager of ETFs. “The failure of active mutual funds to generate outperformance despite charging higher fees has turned investors away.” Active equity funds have returned a negative 13.9% this year, according to a of their performance tracked by the China Securities Index. That’s more than twice the 6.4% loss for the benchmark CSI 300 Fed up, investors have left en masse.Onshore assets under active funds shrank about 40% — or by 2.2 trillion yuan ($312 billion) — since the end of 2021 to 3.2 trillion yuan as of June 2024, data from Morningstar Inc. show. Passive funds assets surged 63% during the period to 2.77 trillion yuan, with at least 70% of them in ETFs. Go back just a few years, China was touted by some as a “.” Its vast equity universe — with over 5,000 listed companies — and eye-popping gains from hot trades in sectors such as and made it a fertile ground for active management.Not anymore. Stock pickers are finding it extremely difficult to beat the market due to China’s unpredictable , geopolitical whirlwinds as well as a prolonged property downturn that has hurt the economy and corporate earnings alike. High-profile fund managers have fallen from grace. One prominent case is — who enjoyed a celebrity-like status during the bull market of 2020-2021, with followers fondly calling him Chun Chun.A fund commentary page on East Money Information Co., a financial , shows investors’ rants over losses incurred by the Invesco Great Wall Blue-Chip Growth Mixed managed by Liu. The fund has lost more than 19% in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It returned 92% in 2020.“Why is everyone still holding on to this fund? They don’t manage it for free, just buy the CSI 300 ETF, it might be easier to make up for your losses there,” complained one holder of the fund.A spokesperson for Invesco Great Wall Fund Management declined to comment for this story. That is not to say that passive funds have proved a haven amid the drawn-out market slump. A of the cohort has lost 13.3% in 2024, only slightly better than active peers, according to data by the China Securities Index.Still, retail investors see ETFs as a hassle-free and less expensive tool that allows them to pursue themes such as dividend stocks that dovetail with Beijing’s . At 0.15% to 0.5%, their management fee is much lower than a 1.2% cap for actively managed mutual funds.Zhu Shengwei, a 26 year-old employee at a state-owned enterprise, is one of millions of retail investors who have ditched active products in favor of ETFs.“Much of the fund raising has occurred at the market’s peak and the managers’ interests are misaligned with that of investors,” he said in an interview, adding that he plans to buy ETFs tracking the Star 50 Index if sentiment stabilizes. Read more: To be sure, other countries have also seen rapid growth in passive investing as the ETF universe broadens. Take South Korea, for example, where ETF assets have more than since the end of 2022. And this year’s boom in China has a lot to do with state-backed investors. Sovereign wealth fund Central Huijin Investment Ltd. made notable ETF purchases when the CSI 300 tumbled to a five-year low in early , and then again in around a key political event.Bloomberg Intelligence analyst that purchases by the so-called National Team account for more than 80% of this year’s ETF inflows of $108 billion. The analysis is based on a calculation of excess flows into 13 ETFs.Read more: But retail interest has surged too, product launches show. The number of new equity-focused passive funds was 117 for the second quarter compared with 75 for the active category, marking the first back-to-back quarterly lead in data going back to 2004. Bloomberg Intelligence the Asia Pacific region to see a record 520 ETF launches this year, with China accounting for more than half of the total. Some market watchers say the rapid adoption of ETFs has the potential to upend the fund industry and introduce new risks. The products have been money even as the stock market slumps, with their outsized presence opening up the door for volatility given their tendency to carry the largest names and cheap fees that allow retail investors to buy and sell like stocks.“One clear impact is that an ETF-heavy market typically exacerbates market momentum, and that holdings will get quite heavy toward the biggest stocks,” said , chief economist at Grow Investment Group. “We can see some of that in the US market as well, so high ETF ownership will speed up gains on the way up, but also makes any downturn steep.” With China’s stock rout showing few signs of abating, expectations are rife for ETF assets to keep growing. In the US, it took about a decade for the passive ratio in equity funds to gradually rise from around 30% to 50%, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data.In China, the ratio was largely stagnant between 20% to 30% over the past decade, before first exceeding 40% this year and reaching 45% at the end of June, Bloomberg calculations based on Morningstar data show. That’s close to 44% in the UK, according to data by EPFR Global. “The growth of ETFs is a self-fulfilling cycle,” with greater scale and liquidity improving market efficiency and again attracting big investors, said , who manages the Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 , the largest onshore ETF. “With increased information via short videos and other media forms, it’s become easier for investors to make decisions for themselves. ETFs have accelerated the ‘decentralization’ of investment decision-making.”Read more:
