The semi-annual reports of funds for 2024 have been gradually disclosed.

Data statistics show that during the reporting period, the proportion of individual investors in the bond funds of the entire market has risen to 16.97%, while three years ago, the mid-year report statistics for 2021 showed that this figure was only 8.97%.

Over the past three years, whether in terms of the absolute number or relative proportion of individual investors, the retailization of public bond funds has become a "major trend".

There are three reasons for the formation of this trend: First, after the new regulations on asset management officially took effect in 2022, wealth management products broke the rigid payment, and the public bond funds that took the lead in net value management have ushered in a new world.

Second, due to the weak recovery of the macroeconomy, individual investors' risk aversion is obvious, and risk preference is reduced.

The demand for assets with lower risk and relatively stable returns continues to grow.

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At the same time, deposit interest rates have decreased, and there are signs of residents' deposits moving to stable financial management.

Third, the bond market has continued to be bullish in the past two years, and the overall performance of bond funds has been good.

According to Wind data, as of the end of the second quarter of this year, the short-term pure bond fund index and the medium and long-term pure bond fund index have achieved a yield of 5.82% and 6.87% in the past two years (annualized returns of 2.96% and 3.48%, respectively), while the equity market has continued to fluctuate, and the lack of high-yield assets has increased the attractiveness of bond funds with relatively stable performance to individual investors.

(Past performance of the index does not represent its future performance, and is not equal to the actual income of the product.

Investment must be cautious.)

The fixed income "tug of war" has entered a new battlefield.

According to Wind data, as of the end of the second quarter of 2024, the total scale of bond funds has broken through 10 trillion yuan, setting a new historical record.

Among them, individual investors are actively participating - Tianxiang Investment Consulting data shows that as of the end of the first half of this year, individual investors hold 1.57 trillion shares of bond funds, an increase of 532.108 billion shares compared to the end of last year, and the trend of retailization of bond funds is obvious.

From the perspective of residents' wealth management in our country, the vast number of individual investors have seen the opportunities in the bond market and recognized the value of public bond funds, which is a manifestation of the increasingly mature concept and behavior of residents' asset allocation.

The wide selection of investors is the recognition of asset management institutions, and it has also ushered in a heavy responsibility.

More individual investors and larger management scales mean that fund companies must have more professional and prudent investment research and risk control management, more flexible and refined product operations, and more thoughtful and three-dimensional marketing services to truly let investors feel the value of stable asset management.

So, what kind of standards and experiences are the "stable" and "reliable" in the minds of individual investors?

How to meet their needs for "stable and reliable" and improve their holding experience has become the key to the public fixed income "tug of war".

For the Great Wall Fund, giving priority to the interests of holders is a principle that the company has always adhered to.

How to let the huge group of individual investors better understand and use bond fund investment tools, and how to continuously create a sense of stability and security for holders, is a topic that the Great Wall Fund is always thinking about.

In recent years, the Great Wall Fund has significantly increased its fixed income management scale, and behind this is the pursuit and persistence of the Great Wall Fund in creating fixed income "stability" - its investment research construction, risk management, and product marketing lines are all working together to provide a sense of stability for fixed income investors.

First, refine and polish the investment research "stability", and pursue performance and risk management at the same time.

The deep integration and high-level collaboration of investment research is the sharp weapon for the Great Wall Fund to create fixed income investment research "stability".

The fixed income team of the Great Wall Fund has always believed that scientific and reasonable fixed income investment decisions cannot be separated from solid, meticulous, and far-reaching research support.

At present, the fixed income team of the Great Wall Fund has covered multiple research directions, and each researcher is specialized and responsible for their own duties, producing valuable results through research that has both breadth and depth.

On this basis, the Great Wall Fund continues to deepen the development of the integration of investment research, encourages two-way interaction between fund managers and researchers, and promotes the effective transmission of research results to the investment chain, thereby enhancing the scientific and stable nature of investment decisions.

The Great Wall Fund pays special attention to risk control and management in fixed income investment.

At the institutional level, the Great Wall Fund has built a complete credit rating system, strictly controls bond credit risk, and promotes the institutionalization and process of risk control, striving to minimize the probability of risk events; at the investment link, it fully studies before investment, closely follows during investment, and the investment research team will regularly sort out the basic situation of all bonds held, in order to form timely and sufficient plan choices to deal with changes in market conditions.

In recent years, the large increase in the scale of bond funds and the influx of individual investors have had a significant impact on the management of both the asset and liability sides of bond funds.

The fixed income team of the Great Wall Fund has also conducted forward-looking research and actively responded - on the liability side, it adjusts according to market conditions, actual investment situations, and the needs for stable development, striving to maintain the stability and health of the product's customer structure and funds; on the asset side, it strengthens refined management, chooses the right strategies, builds optimized investment portfolios, and tries to meet the needs of different holders as much as possible.

Second, consolidate and improve product management and customer companionship "stability", and protect investors in a three-dimensional way.

Combining changes in the capital market, the implementation of new regulations on asset management, and the process of residents' wealth management, the Great Wall Fund has made forward-looking judgments on the development of the domestic bond fund market: as investors' risk preferences decrease and the number of stable return investment varieties decreases, public bond funds are one of the more cost-effective stable investment tools for individual investors, and may continue to be the direction of focus and effort for fund companies for a period of time.

However, compared with equity funds, domestic individual investors have always paid relatively less attention to bond funds, and have not formed enough accumulation of knowledge and experience in bond investment, and the original driving force for the surge in the retail scale of bond funds this time is more a comprehensive factor of the market's investment risk preference reduction.

Therefore, the current pursuit of bond funds by individual investors also has a certain degree of irrationality, and this situation has also brought new tests to the marketing and product management of bond funds.

If not handled properly, it may put greater pressure on investment management.

Individual investors in bond funds mainly have two characteristics and potential behaviors: on the one hand, individual investors are highly sensitive to product net value fluctuations, but due to less understanding of the bond market and the operation of fixed income products, they are prone to short-term irrational trading behaviors.

A research report by Shanghai Securities points out that under the guidance of market conditions and product marketing rhetoric in the past period, investors have not formed a sufficiently reasonable expectation of the fluctuations they may face, which increases the possibility of investors overreacting when fluctuations occur.

On the other hand, when the bond market fluctuates, under the popular environment of social media, the interweaving and spread of various "irrational voices" are easy to amplify the "herd effect" of the market, which may cause exaggerated panic and trigger follow-up trampling, such as the redemption tide that occurred in 2022 - at that time, market interest rates rose, bond prices fell, and some products' net value retreated, and a large-scale redemption tide occurred under market panic.

The price of the underlying investment assets and the net value fluctuation of the product formed a resonance, and the market spiraled downward in a cycle, ultimately causing greater negative impact on the interests of investors.

In order to prevent such situations, the Great Wall Fund has carried out a series of work in the management of fixed income products, such as restricting large-scale subscriptions and classifying product shares, in order to reduce concentrated subscriptions and irrational redemption behaviors, and to avoid the impact of large-scale redemptions on product liquidity as much as possible.

It is also conducive to fund managers to carry out investment management from a long-term perspective, and better meet the long-term stable value-added financial needs of investors.

At the same time, the Great Wall Fund also attaches great importance to the accompanying work of investors.

When the bond market fluctuates, the mentality and emotions of individual investors may fluctuate greatly, and fund companies have the responsibility to help investors shield the "noise" of the market and create a rational and healthy public opinion environment.

On the one hand, the Great Wall Fund encourages fund managers to actively speak to investors, especially to answer investors' questions and confusion in a timely manner when the net value of the product fluctuates greatly.

At the same time, the Great Wall Fund has increased efforts to popularize and promote the knowledge of bond fund investment in marketing and investment education work, in order to guide investors to invest scientifically and rationally.

For example, recently, the bond market has been "frequently shaking", and individual investors have paid great attention.

At this point, the Great Wall Fund has launched "Stay Stable, Strong as the Great Wall - Advanced Treasure Book of Fixed Income Funds" on the basis of daily companionship, through cards, videos, live broadcasts and other forms to decompose the knowledge of fixed income investment and post-investment tracking management, helping customers to clearly understand the principle of bond market fluctuations and the basic logic of the operation of fixed income funds, and to face short-term fluctuations with a more calm mentality.