CICC's report states that the bank stock fund's position in the third quarter was 2.7%, an increase of 0.06 percentage points from the previous quarter, still at a historical low. From the beginning of 2024 to date, A-share/H-share banks have risen by 35.5% and 33.2% respectively, outperforming the market level, with higher regional gains. Currently, the overall bank sector is underweighted by funds by about 9.7 percentage points, the underweighting has narrowed slightly quarterly, but remains at a historically high level, indicating that there is still room for increasing positions in bank stocks.

The report points out that bank holdings saw a slight increase in the third quarter. Internally within the sector, joint-stock banks received more position increases, while the positions of major banks slightly decreased. Currently, actively managed bank stock funds still have room for increasing positions relative to the market cap proportion and historical position levels of the bank sector. Key to the bank fundamentals is observing the real impact of a series of policies on long-term economic outlook improvement.

CICC believes that banks with higher dividends and stable asset quality still have attractiveness in the long term, including Bank of China (00939.HK), China Merchants Bank (03968.HK), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (01398.HK), Agricultural Bank of China (01288.HK), HSBC Holdings (00005.HK), Bank of Jiangsu (600919.SH), Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank (601077.SH), etc.; currently, there is a higher AH premium, with Hong Kong-listed major banks expected to narrow the discount due to dividend tax adjustments. In the expectation of economic improvement, China Merchants Bank and Bank of Ningbo (002142.SZ) are more flexible.