Affected by the epidemic, financial markets have become more volatile, and investors are very sensitive. Recently, a complaint about the performance of the crude oil fund has attracted attention, and the reason for the controversy is that the net worth of the crude oil fund has obviously outperformed the oil price. On March 19, international oil prices rose sharply after a sharp fall, but once-battered crude oil funds failed to fully enjoy the rebound, and the increase in net worth was significantly less than the increase in oil prices.
In fact, investors questioned the operation of the QDII crude oil fund behind the lack of understanding and even misunderstanding. The benchmark crude oil prices usually targeted by the market are WTI crude oil and Brent crude oil, which rose 22% and 13.44% respectively on March 19, a strong rebound after a series of sharp falls in crude oil prices. On the same day, however, the net worth performance of the seven oil and gas QDII funds was not so strong.
The data showed that Guangfa Dow Jones American Oil A RMB was the best performer on March 19, with a daily net gain of 8.04 per cent, Warburg Standard & Poor's oil and gas rose 5.49 per cent, and other crude oil QDII rose less than 5 per cent.
Compared with the double-digit increase in oil prices, why does the increase in the net worth of crude oil funds lag so far?
According to reports, the crude oil QDII fund does not directly invest in Brent and WTI crude oil futures, that is to say, the performance of the crude oil QDII fund is not necessarily synchronized with the crude oil futures price. The reporter found that Southern crude Oil, Castrol crude Oil, Yifangda crude Oil, Nuoan Oil and Gas Energy and other funds mainly invest in oil ETF; Warburg Standard & Poor's Oil and Gas, Huaan S&P Global Inc. Oil, and Guangfa Dow Jones American Oil.
In addition, there is a "time gap" between the crude oil QDII fund net performance and the tracking target. Take Southern crude Oil as an example, the fund mainly invests in public funds that track crude oil prices around the world, and the global mainstream markets mainly include New York, Switzerland, London, Japan, etc., while WTI and Brent, which are closely followed, represent the New York and London markets. There are also differences in different markets due to different closing times. On March 19th, both WTI and Brent closed higher, while some crude oil ETF varieties in Japan and Europe rose little or fell, so the performance of Southern crude Oil Fund on that day was different from that of US crude oil prices.
Similarly, the investment target of Castrol crude oil fund is mostly offshore crude oil ETF fund, and its products involve many national and regional markets, and there are also problems of different trading periods. Castrol values the listed funds according to the closing price on the stock exchange on the valuation date; if there is no trading on the valuation date, it shall be valued on the basis of the closing price on the most recent trading day, and the net value of the fund share will be disclosed on the 2nd. As a result, there is a time difference between the net value of funds seen by investors and the performance of a single crude oil price.
An analyst at Shanghai Securities said it would take time for funds to change from the investor's account to the domestic escrow account into the corresponding foreign currency, then to the offshore custodian account, and finally to the specific assets. In terms of fund operation, cross-border remittance to Bank of America Corporation will also go through foreign exchange management review, which will generally be received within 1-5 days. Although under normal circumstances, margin accounts can be used for hedging operations, when large applications occur and the market fluctuates greatly, the margin accounts may not be sufficient, or when they encounter risk control restrictions, the fund may not be able to buy a basket of assets in time, resulting in a certain deviation between the fund net performance and the tracking index.
Short-term crude oil QDII fund is different from crude oil futures price for various reasons, but for a long time, crude oil QDII tracking crude oil futures price is very close, basically consistent, investors should take a longer time to examine the performance of crude oil QDII fund.
Industry insiders said that due to the impact of the epidemic and geopolitics, the original oil price has fallen sharply since March, and recently investors have poured into crude oil QDII funds to make a bottom, resulting in many QDII funds urgently suspending applications. Investors bottom crude oil QDII, need to understand the operation of QDII products, careful participation, do not speculate blindly.
