A-Share Mutual Fund H1 Performance Rankings: Top Return at 183%, Semiconductor & AI Dominate
Claire Weston
China's mutual funds posted their first-half 2026 results: 197 funds doubled, the top performer gained 183.67%, and semiconductors plus AI swept nearly every leaderboard — concentration in a single theme has reached an extreme.
Who took the first-half crown?
The active-equity leader is Founder Fubon Core Advantage Fund (managed by Wu Hao), up roughly 183.67% year-to-date; the top-20 entry bar sat at 149.18%.
Caitong Multi-Strategy Fuxin (Jin Zicai, 172.94%) and Dongfang Huixin (Yan Kai, 167.25%) ranked second and third; the top-10 floor exceeded 157%.
This means → merely doubling was nowhere near enough to crack the elite tier — a fund needed to gain at least 1.5× just to rank.
How did one manager claim six spots?
Jin Zicai's products occupied 6 of the top 20 slots, making him the de facto grand-slam winner.
In plain terms = one manager runs multiple funds with similar style and overlapping holdings, so the same person can "flood" the leaderboard.
Dongfang's Yan Kai, Soochow's Zhang Haojia, and Huashang's Zhang Mingxin each placed 2 funds in the top 20; Jin Zicai, GF's Tang Xiaobin, and Yinhua's Fang Jian have all ranked near the top in prior years too. This reflects genuine persistence in active management, not a one-year bet.
How extreme is the index-fund picture?
Every single top-20 index fund tracks a semiconductor theme; the top 16 are all semiconductor materials-and-equipment products.
Penghua's STAR Market Semiconductor Materials & Equipment ETF (Lin Song, 171.35%) leads, with ChinaAMC (Yang Siqi, 170.97%) and HTBR (Li Muyang, 169.51%) right behind — the gap among all three is under two percentage points.
This means → in the passive lane, picking the right theme mattered far more than picking the right product — any semiconductor materials-and-equipment index delivered nearly identical returns.
Did overseas-focused funds keep up?
The QDII (funds investing in overseas markets) leader is HTBR CSI-KRX China-Korea Semiconductor ETF (Li Muyang & Liu Jun, 130.80%); Korean semiconductor exposure was the standout QDII bet.
Overall, QDII performance lagged A-share funds; median QDII returns remained negative, showing sharp divergence across overseas markets.
In plain terms = a handful of QDII funds that hit on semiconductors also doubled, but a random QDII pick most likely lost money — winners were extremely concentrated.
Which bond funds broke away?
ChinaAMC Convertible Bond Enhanced (Liu Wanjun, 42.57%) topped the bond category; Huashang Convertible Bond (Zhang Yongzhi, 40.74%) came second — both are convertible-bond funds.
This means → with tech stocks surging, convertible bonds — instruments that combine bond-like downside protection with equity-like upside — outran pure fixed-income.
This reflects how the first-half equity rally bled into the bond universe: even the fixed-income champion carried equity characteristics.
What does this scoreboard tell us?
In the first half, 197 funds doubled, nearly all concentrated in four themes: semiconductors, AI, integrated circuits, and advanced manufacturing.
A tech-stock surge on June 30 — the final trading day — reshuffled some rankings at the last moment, showing momentum persisted right through the close.
This reflects a market whose returns have become heavily dependent on a single thematic lane; the core question for the second half: can this lane keep delivering?
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.