The US interest rate cut is imminent, and US bond investment has entered a good period. In this context, recent QDII funds related to US bonds have attracted a large influx of funds, leading to changes in fund size and investment limits, and fund managers have subsequently upgraded their purchase restrictions intensively.
Faced with tight investment quotas and better allocation windows, industry insiders suggest that investors can increase their purchase quotas by adopting a portfolio strategy of buying more QDII funds.
US Treasury QDII funds intensively upgrade purchase restrictions
Recently, QDII bond funds that mainly invest in US dollar bonds have been making frequent moves, with some funds rarely implementing purchase restrictions, while more funds have upgraded their previous purchase restrictions.
Recently, Rongtong Fund announced that starting from August 12th, Rongtong China Concept Bonds will temporarily suspend accepting applications from a single fund account with a cumulative subscription and fixed investment amount exceeding 1 million yuan (excluding 1 million yuan) per day (the application amounts for subscription and fixed investment will be calculated together, and the application amounts for Class A and C will be calculated together). Previously, the fund had been open for subscription for a long time and had not set a subscription limit in the past three years.
Since the second half of the year, QDII funds for US dollar bonds such as E Fund's short-term US dollar bonds, Bank of China's US dollar bonds, Guofu US dollar bonds held for one year, and ICBC Global US dollar bonds have successively issued announcements to adjust the limit amount for large subscription business or suspend subscription. Among them, most funds have upgraded their purchase restrictions.
For example, according to the announcement of Guohai Franklin Fund, starting from July 11th, Guofu US dollar bonds are limited to a purchase limit of 100000 yuan per year for RMB fund shares and 10000 US dollars per year for US dollar fund shares. Only 4 days later, starting from July 15th, the purchase limits for the two types of shares mentioned above were reduced to 1000 yuan and 100 US dollars respectively.
Starting from July 24th, the subscription of RMB shares of E Fund's medium and short-term US dollar bonds will be suspended, and the company will directly announce a "closed door thank you" policy. On June 7th, the fund had just resumed the subscription and regular fixed investment business of A-class RMB shares and C-class RMB shares, and set a subscription limit of 1000 yuan.
Behind the purchase restrictions, there may be a strong demand for configuration, which has been evident since the first half of the year. According to Wind data, in the first half of this year, the total size of 25 QDII bond funds (only counting the main code) in the market surged by 82% compared to the end of last year, and the vast majority of fund sizes achieved an increase. Among them, several funds such as Fuguo Global Bond, Penghua Global Short Term Bond, Changxin Global Bond, and Southern Asia USD Bond have all experienced significant growth in scale.
In terms of performance, the average increase of 25 QDII bond funds this year is close to 3%. The best performing fund has achieved a return of over 10% within the year, while several other products have risen by over 4%.
It is worth noting that as of now, all of these funds have implemented a purchase restriction mode, with 4 funds temporarily suspended from subscription and 10 funds with a daily subscription limit of less than or equal to 1000 yuan.
US bonds still have investment value
Suggest adopting a combination strategy to increase the purchase limit
The impressive performance of QDII funds investing in US Treasury bonds this year is mainly due to the increasing expectation of interest rate cuts in the United States.
According to industry introduction, USD bond QDII fund mainly invests in US treasury bond bonds, overseas credit bonds, etc. Overall, bond prices are negatively correlated with yields. If the Federal Reserve initiates a rate cut, bond yields will decline and bond prices will rise, which is favorable for US dollar QDII products.
Since the third quarter, with the further increase in interest rate cutting trading, QDII bond funds have received more market attention, and the quota has also become tight. As a result, the redemption status and subscription limit of this type of fund are frequently adjusted due to changes in the size and investment amount of QDII funds.
Standing at the moment, Dr. Wang Zhiqiang, Global Asset Allocation Director of Jiashi Wealth, believes that investing in US bonds is the right time. Whether from the perspective of global allocation, the current investment value of US Treasury assets, or the flow of investors' funds, the advantages of this asset are highlighted.
The direction of US bond interest rates is likely to be downward: if there is no recession, the Federal Reserve needs to return interest rates to a normalized level; if there is a recession, the Federal Reserve needs to cut interest rates more significantly, lowering interest rates to a lower level. At this point, US bonds will stand out among major asset classes. Regardless of which situation occurs, US bonds have considerable allocation value, "said Wang Zhiqiang.
Wells Fargo Fund further pointed out that, from the perspective of certainty, if the hold to maturity strategy is adopted, the six-month and one-year U.S. treasury bond can provide 5.02% and 4.5% of annual returns. With sufficiently high coupon, the risk to return ratio of investing in short-term U.S. bonds may be stronger. From the past three rounds of interest rate cuts, it can be seen that when the interest rate cut cycle begins, the elasticity of long-term limited US bonds may be stronger, which is exactly the situation in the US bond market in the past 1 to 2 months. However, with the rapidly increasing market expectations of interest rate cuts, the investment value of long-term US Treasury bonds also needs to pause and take a look again.
The current US bond funds may have certain investment value, but the dilemma facing investors is that the quota of QDII US bond funds is tight, which also leads to difficulties in investing in US bonds.
Regarding this, Fuguo Fund suggests that if the funds of US Treasury bonds are managed with tagging, perhaps the purchase amount can be increased through a combination strategy of buying more. From the perspective of portfolio strategy, short-term bond varieties may be used as bottom positions, long-term stable varieties as allocation, and a small portion of positions may be tested in short-term elastic varieties. The combination strategy not only solves the problem of partial limit restrictions, but also to some extent avoids the risk of a single base.