For the first time in the last two years, the Hong Kong Stock QDII (Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor) fund has been among the top ten QDII fund performance, highlighting the resilience of China's economic recovery.
With the help of mainland public capital going south and overseas capital flowing back, the Hong Kong stock market has outperformed A-shares for many consecutive days. The Hong Kong stock market, which has been sluggish for a long time, is undergoing a recovery. Even some fund managers who have the authority to invest in US stocks in fund contracts have given up the opportunity to invest in US stocks and instead are determined to take positions on more cost-effective Hong Kong stocks. In response, several fund managers stressed that the Hong Kong stock market is currently under the dual effects of severe undervaluation and performance restoration, and it is expected that a wave of rebound will gradually unfold.
Hong Kong stocks are gradually gaining strength, and some QDII holds heavy positions
In the period after February of this year, A-shares rebounded strongly after a sharp decline, while Hong Kong stocks were slightly flat, and the rebound was relatively small. Today, with the increase in capital brought about by the accelerated issuance and listing of mainland public funds and ETF (Tradable Open Index Fund) products, and the recovery of Hong Kong stock performance and the return of capital from overseas markets under extremely undervalued valuations, the Hong Kong stock market has recently significantly outperformed A-shares.
On April 10, with the A-share market closing down, the Hong Kong stock Hang Seng Index still rose sharply by 1.85%, and the Hang Seng Technology Index surged by more than 2%. The overall market capital was extremely active. Xiaopeng Motor, which is heavily owned by Hong Kong stock themed fund managers, surged nearly 8%, Bilibili rose more than 6%, and Alibaba rose nearly 5%.
Precisely because the performance of the Hong Kong stock market has begun to be clearly strong in the last two weeks, the Hong Kong Stock QDII Fund has entered the top ten QDII performers for the first time in the last two years. In particular, due to the effects of going long on Hong Kong stocks in recent days, fund managers with leading positions in Hong Kong stocks have begun to taste sweet. The Dacheng Hong Kong Stock Select QDII Fund, a subsidiary of Dacheng Fund, has yielded over 14% since this year. According to disclosed holdings, the fair value of Hong Kong stocks invested by the fund through the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Exchange mechanism was RMB 184 million, accounting for 78.91% of the fund's net asset value at the end of the period.
It is worth noting that according to the relevant contract disclosed by the fund mentioned above, Dacheng Hong Kong Stock Selection QDII can actually allocate a large percentage of the US stock market within the scope of the fund contract, but fund managers have largely relinquished their “authority” to take heavy positions in US stocks. Up to now, Dacheng Hong Kong Stock Select QDII Fund holds a total of 86.42% of Hong Kong stock positions, with only a symbolic holding of 4.42% of US stock positions.
As can be seen, some Hong Kong stock QDII fund managers did not chase popular US stocks because of certain terms of fund contracts. Previously, many Hong Kong stock QDII funds basically became US stock themed funds. The above situation is also apparent. Some QDII fund managers are beginning to be really optimistic about the Hong Kong stock market, especially the leading Chinese assets that are seriously undervalued.
Good performance reports are compounded by undervaluation, and there is a clear return of capital
Public funds and overseas institutions often value performance when investing in Hong Kong stocks. As a result, as the performance of many Hong Kong stock companies has clearly recovered, Hong Kong stocks, which are currently in the disclosure period of their annual reports, have begun to benefit from the return of capital.
In an interview with the Securities Times reporter, Qu Shaojie, the fund manager responsible for overseas investment of Great Wall Fund, said that the strategy for investing in Hong Kong stocks is to “not see rabbits and not throw hawks”. In particular, large overseas institutional investors adhere to this strategy in the Hong Kong stock market. In other words, they must observe significant changes in the fundamentals of the market and related investment targets before taking action. As a result, some overseas institutional capital began to gradually flow back into Chinese assets, and Hong Kong stocks, as the core of overseas institutional allocations, clearly benefited.
The above logic also means that during the period of intensive disclosure of Hong Kong stock annual reports at the end of March and the beginning of April, those “happy news” companies will significantly attract the attention of fund managers. Some institutional research reports emphasize that the Hong Kong stock market usually performs well in April. As a highly institutionalized offshore market, investors' overall risk appetite is higher, and the requirements for certainty of profit are also higher. Investors are willing to give higher valuations only when profit fundamentals rise definitively. Most of the Hong Kong stock annual reports were disclosed in early April. As certainty increases, investors' risk appetite will pick up somewhat.
The Securities Times reporter noticed that according to Wind statistics, as of the end of March 2024, the latest price-earnings ratio of the Global China Internet Index tracked by China Internet ETF was only 10 times higher, at a historical fraction of less than 7%. In other words, the current index is more cost-effective than over 93% of its history. Related to this, the annual reports of Hong Kong stock listed companies reflect the obvious recovery of the current Chinese economy, and even many loss-making new economic leaders have shown a sharp increase in gross profit and a clear trend of reversing losses in their newly disclosed annual reports.
Some agencies pointed out that judging from the performance of core Hong Kong stock companies, the new economy sector, led by Hang Seng Technology, and Hong Kong's local stocks had the highest profits. From an industry perspective, consumer services, retail, technical hardware and equipment, utilities, and automotive profits had the highest year-on-year growth rates.
Risk appetite has increased, and a further rebound in Hong Kong stocks can be expected
Regarding the current investment opportunities in the Hong Kong stock market, Bai Yang, manager of Dacheng Hong Kong Stock Select Fund, believes that the adverse factors of Hong Kong stocks have already been reflected in the valuation. In particular, some short-term negative factors have been reflected more often in long-term valuation factors. If there are favorable factors in the future, the Hong Kong stock market will have upward momentum and sufficient flexibility.
“Since the beginning of the year, the Hang Seng Index fell below 16,000 points. At the time, we thought it was time to deal with Hong Kong stocks with a positive mindset.” Bai Yang believes that in terms of choosing investment types, high-quality state-owned enterprises with high dividends associated with the “China Special Assessment” are still a good and steady choice for medium- to long-term investors in the current situation where market hot spots are changing and the structural market is not strong. On the industry side, at a time when US inflation is high and the Chinese economy is gradually recovering, upstream resource companies are worthy of focus and holding. In terms of investment style, there should be opportunities to increase the risk appetite of the portfolio during the year to expand portfolio flexibility and potential returns, but at this stage, more emphasis will still be placed on value categories, especially the steady dividend style, and growth stocks that are relatively cost-effective and have a good margin of safety will also be actively considered.
Su Qihan, manager of the Huada China Upgrade Fund, also believes that Hong Kong stocks, as an overall undervalued sector, are more cost-effective than A-shares, and structurally they still adhere to the barbell strategy.
Xu Cheng, manager of Guofu Fund, which heavily stocks Hong Kong stocks, also believes that China's new economy, which is in the midst of a transition period, is on the rise, there is plenty of room for future development, and the profitability of core enterprises in the new economy is expected to gradually improve. At the same time, the growth rate of performance in the fields of hard technology, digital economy, new energy, high-end manufacturing, biomedicine, etc. is still expected to remain at a high level. The medium- to long-term logic of the Hong Kong stock market is mainly reflected in the current market valuation at a historically low level, and there are still quite a few undervalued individual stocks awaiting exploration in the Hong Kong stock market.
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