A Day of 11 "Mini Hit" Funds: New Fund Issuance Heating Up Again

Securities Times Reporter Yu Shipeng

According to fund announcements on March 18, a total of 11 “hot” funds (including different share classes) with a scale exceeding 1 billion yuan have been established across the market, with active equity funds and FOFs (funds of funds) accounting for 7 of them. The issuance enthusiasm continues to rise.

As of March 18, the number of active equity funds raised over 1 billion yuan this year has reached 34, accounting for more than 35% of all similar funds established this year; there are 22 FOFs with a scale exceeding 1 billion yuan, making up 50% of the total funds launched this year.

Large-scale fundraising has brought about two changes: first, the effective number of subscription accounts for active equity funds has returned to levels seen before October 2021; second, driven by multiple products selling out in a single day, the total scale of FOFs has for the first time surpassed 300 billion yuan.

34 Active Equity Funds Raised Over 1 Billion Yuan This Year

According to Wind data, on March 18, seven active equity funds (including ordinary stock funds and hybrid funds with a bias towards stocks) were established, with five of them raising over 1 billion yuan. Among these, Industrial Bank’s Zhenxuan Return fund had the largest scale at 3.499 billion yuan. Following closely was Invesco Great Wall Xinyou Growth, with 2.592 billion yuan. The other three funds are E Fund Research Intelligent Selection, Bank of Communications Yuanjian Select, and Ping An Jiurui Return, with scales of 1.732 billion yuan, 1.593 billion yuan, and 1.187 billion yuan respectively.

Including these five funds, the number of active equity funds with a scale over 1 billion yuan since 2026 has reached 34, accounting for over 35% of all active equity funds established this year. In terms of scale, nine active equity funds have raised more than 3 billion yuan, with GF Research Intelligent Hybrid leading at 7.221 billion yuan. Yonyin Rui Jian Growth, Huabao Advantage Industry, and Yinhua Smart Share each have raised over 5 billion yuan.

In fact, the issuance of active equity funds began to recover in 2025, but the total number of funds raising over 1 billion yuan that year was only 55, out of 303 similar products established, accounting for less than 20%. The largest single fund raised nearly 5 billion yuan. This indicates that since 2026, investor subscription activity for active equity funds has become more vigorous.

This trend is also reflected in subscription account numbers. Since 2025, the top ten funds by subscription accounts are all newly established products since 2026. For example, the Yonyin Rui Jian Growth fund, established on March 10, raised 5.867 billion yuan and attracted 230,400 effective subscriptions. This is the highest subscription count among active equity funds established since October 2021.

Total FOF Scale Breaks 300 Billion Yuan for the First Time

Among various fund types, FOFs are the second most popular public funds after active equity funds. On March 18, four FOF funds were established, with two raising over 1 billion yuan. One is the WanJia RunAn Stable 3-Month Holding Period Hybrid FOF, which raised 1.366 billion yuan with 4,162 effective subscriptions. The other is Invesco Great Wall and Xirui An 3-Month Holding Period Hybrid FOF, which raised 1.363 billion yuan with 8,162 subscriptions.

Including these two, since 2026, 22 FOFs with a scale over 1 billion yuan have been launched, out of a total of 44 FOFs issued this year. This means that FOFs with a scale exceeding 1 billion yuan account for 50%. In comparison, in 2025, 89 FOFs were established, with 25 raising over 1 billion yuan, making the proportion of FOFs over 10 billion yuan less than 30%.

Looking at fundraising scale, the largest FOF this year is the Bosera Ying Tai Zhenxuan 6-Month Holding FOF, launched in early February, with 5.844 billion yuan. The second is the China Europe Ying Xin Stable 6-Month Holding FOF, established on March 13, with 5.125 billion yuan. Other notable funds include ICBC Ying Tai Stable 6-Month Holding FOF and Fu Guo Zhihui Stable 3-Month Holding FOF, each exceeding 4 billion yuan.

The FOF issuance boom this year is also reflected in two aspects: first, 10 of the 22 FOFs raising over 10 billion yuan sold out in a single day, including the largest one, Bosera Ying Tai Zhenxuan 6-Month Holding FOF; second, driven by multiple “hot” products, the overall scale of FOFs has surpassed 300 billion yuan for the first time since their inception in 2017.

According to Huaxia Fund, the recent FOF boom is related to three factors:

1. Over 50 trillion yuan of residents’ medium- and long-term fixed deposits mature in 2026. Against the backdrop of declining deposit interest rates and low yields on traditional financial products, FOFs have become an important tool to absorb this capital.

2. In a low-interest-rate environment, FOFs can effectively allocate assets across stocks, bonds, commodities, and overseas markets, with more diversified and dispersed assets potentially smoothing volatility.

3. Performance has significantly rebounded, boosting investment confidence. As of March 10, the Wind FOF Index has increased by 12.69% over the past year, significantly outperforming the same period’s Wind Bond Fund Total Index.

Fund Managers: Focus on Earnings Recovery and Flexibility in A-shares

Whether active equity funds or FOF products, ultimately they channel investments into the entire capital market. From this perspective, the pursuit of new funds by investors is essentially driven by investment expectations.

Morgan Stanley Fund told Securities Times that recent gains in major indices have been somewhat limited this year, mainly affected by Middle East tensions, but from an index perspective, this has not had a significant impact on A-shares. Investors’ tilt toward oil, gas assets, and defensive sectors has provided clear support to the indices. The main future directions are expected to be upstream price increases, energy security, and AI chains. The development trend of the AI industry is highly correlated with the stability of private equity credit markets. Over the past few weeks, AI’s impact on software has led to redemption pressures on private equity credit funds, mainly affecting valuations of global AI assets. However, performance fundamentals remain strong, with OpenClaw’s surge causing a sharp increase in token demand and a tenfold growth in domestic platform calls.

Fuguo Fund believes that under the gradual economic recovery and the policy orientation of “stability with progress, quality improvement, and efficiency enhancement,” the market may continue its structural trend. In the short term, the upcoming intensive disclosure of annual and first-quarter reports of listed companies, along with rising prices and earnings, could serve as key factors for capturing structural opportunities. Comparing the profit cycle of the CSI 300 and the price cycle, both tend to move in sync. Improvements in prices will influence the elasticity of A-shares’ earnings recovery and, consequently, the index level.

Yang Fei, Deputy Director of Equity Investment at Penghua Fund, told Securities Times, “From a mid-term industry trend perspective, technology remains one of the main themes in A-shares, with AI being a core internal theme.” He expects three key directions within the tech industry over the next month: domestic storage capacity, domestic computing power, and new AI technologies. Domestic storage capacity benefits from supply shortages and explosive AI demand, favoring storage chip design and storage devices; domestic computing power benefits from increased AI capital expenditure and explosive growth in AI inference, favoring AI chip design (including ASIC, GPU, CPU) and CDN; new AI technologies mainly refer to changes brought by new chip architectures and server network architectures, including new storage software and CPO.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)