China's First Batch of Active ETFs Approved, 18 Institutions to Launch Offerings on Friday
nashnova research
China's first 18 actively managed ETFs were approved on October 19 and will begin offering simultaneously on October 23, marking the debut of active-management ETFs in the Chinese market and an immediate race among fund houses for differentiation.
What is an active ETF, and how does it differ from a regular one?
A regular ETF — an exchange-traded fund — simply tracks an index. The manager makes no stock-picking decisions.
An active ETF keeps the ETF wrapper — traded on exchange in real time, holdings disclosed daily — but lets the manager select and adjust positions to try to beat the benchmark.
This means → investors get two things at once: the potential for active alpha + ETF-grade transparency and low cost.
How big is this first batch?
18 products were approved on the same day. The process took roughly three months from filing — fast by industry standards.
9 will list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, 9 on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, spanning 18 leading fund houses including E Fund, China AMC, China Southern, and Fullgoal.
In plain terms = the regulator let all 18 start on the same line, sending a clear policy signal — and ensuring that competition is intense from day one.
How do the 18 products' strategies differ?
Balanced allocation is the dominant theme — China Southern, ICBC Credit Suisse (Huatai-PineBridge), China Universal, Hua An, Tianhong, Yongying, Guotai, and HuaBao — 7 houses chose a "balanced" framework, spreading bets rather than concentrating on one sector.
Dividend-focused: Ping An, ICBC Credit Suisse, and Dacheng — 3 products targeting high-dividend stocks. Value-focused: Penghua, China Merchants, and Huatai-PineBridge — 3 products hunting undervalued names.
China AMC chose "quality selection," E Fund "quality-balanced," and Fullgoal "value-quant." This reflects early differentiation among the top-tier players.
What do the fund houses themselves say?
E Fund's research team says active stock ETFs "can both reduce investor costs and boost the appeal of actively managed equity funds," with transparent holdings suited to medium- and long-term capital.
Wang Baohe, head of Fullgoal's quantitative investment unit, says active ETFs must follow ETF operating rules, allowing managers to monitor tracking deviation continuously — "helping improve the stability of investment style."
This means → the industry consensus is that the core selling point is not just stock-picking skill but the discipline that transparency enforces — with positions disclosed daily, style drift is harder to hide.
All 18 launch on the same day — what happens next?
A simultaneous launch means no first-mover advantage — each house must compete on strategy positioning and brand strength for initial assets.
Seven houses clustering around balanced strategies reflects a preference for the "don't-get-it-wrong" playbook, but it also means the most crowded lane is the one with the least differentiation.
Put simply = the shape of China's active-ETF market will not be decided by who got approved — it will be decided by who delivers differentiated performance after launch. The real race starts now.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。