China’s biggest ETF is now a US$13 billion gold fund as state stock market support fades
The reshuffling of country’s largest ETFs offers a picture of where investors are putting their money
Published Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 05:37 PM
[BEIJING] A China spot gold ETF has overtaken the Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF to become the country’s largest exchange-traded fund, highlighting the extent to which state-backed support for the stock market has faded.
The Huaan Yifu Gold ETF now has a market capitalisation of 90 billion yuan (US$13 billion), edging past the 83 billion yuan in the CSI 300 ETF, which was once a favourite of China’s so-called national team.
At its peak, the CSI 300 ETF’s value hit about 440 billion yuan after Central Huijin Investment, a unit of China’s sovereign wealth fund, and other entities poured money into it starting in 2024 to stabilise the stock market.
This year, China’s national team has been paring its stakes in some of the country’s largest ETFs, suggesting an effort to temper market froth. The reduced support may also have weighed on the CSI 300 Index, which is up 4.9 per cent this year, trailing the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index’s 21 per cent gain, even as tech-focused gauges such as the Star 50 index have climbed to record highs.
The gold ETF has not been immune to market swings either. Its value has fallen from a peak of 136 billion yuan as gold prices slipped this year and investors pulled money from the fund. A small bounce over the past two days was enough to push it above the Huatai-PineBridge ETF, which continued to see outflows of about 18.5 billion yuan last week, among the largest in Asia.
The reshuffling of China’s largest ETFs offers a picture of where investors are putting their money as state support for the market is scaled back. The country’s third- and fourth-largest ETFs are now the HFT CSI Short Term Note ETF and Hwabao WP Cash Tianyi Traded Money Market ETF, respectively.
Their rise underscores strong demand for defensive assets such as fixed-income and cash-management products. Despite the gains in Chinese stocks this year, advances have been concentrated in a narrow group of AI hardware names, while economic uncertainty continues to weigh on the broader market. BLOOMBERG
