August has brought a sudden chill to the new fund issuance market. Data from Tonghuashun iFinD shows that, calculated by subscription start date and combining different share classes, from August 1st to 27th, the entire market saw 72 new funds launched, totaling 25.505 billion units in issued shares. Both the number of new funds and the issued share volume shrank significantly compared to the same period in July, with the average issuance per new fund at 354 million units, indicating a weakening capacity to attract capital.

Bond funds have become the stabilizer of the new issuance market, while the average fundraising scale for single equity products remains modest. Specifically, 13 bond funds collectively issued 8.185 billion units, accounting for 32.09%; 30 equity funds issued 6.045 billion units, making up 23.70%; 20 mixed funds issued 5.458 billion units, representing 21.40%; 8 FOF funds issued 5.462 billion units, or 21.42%; and a single QDII fund issued 354 million units, comprising 1.39%. No new REITs or money market funds were launched.

Another sign of the cooling market is the reappearance of extended fundraising periods for new funds. On August 28th, Tianhong Fund announced an extension for its Tianhong SSE STAR Market Chip Index Fund. The fund began subscriptions on August 17, 2026, with an original deadline of August 28, 2026, but Tianhong decided to push this deadline back to September 11, 2026. Products announcing extensions are not uncommon in August alone. A review of fund announcements by release date reveals that on August 20th alone, several funds, including the Hua宝 SSE STAR Market Chip Design Theme ETF, Southern CSI A-Share ETF, Xinyuan CSI Green Power ETF, China Merchants CSI Rare Earth Theme ETF, Southern Qihang Win-Win Mixed Fund, Xingye Futai 90-day Holding Bond Fund, and the Bank of Communications Schroders Huixiang Multi-Asset Six-Month Holding FOF, all extended their fundraising deadlines.

Li Yiming, a senior analyst at Morningstar China Fund Research Center, believes that increased volatility in the equity market has put pressure on existing equity fund returns, dampening individual investors' willingness to subscribe to new equity offerings. Concurrently, the performance across different market sectors is highly polarized, with capital concentrating in a few tracks. Most newly launched theme funds lack short-term profit effects to attract investors, leading to insufficient momentum for incremental capital inflows.

As fundraising heat declines and extensions become frequent, the industry's product "metabolism" is accelerating. On August 28th, the Anxin Steady Qihang One-Year Holding Mixed Fund published its liquidation report. The fund's contract took effect on December 28, 2022, with initial fund shares of approximately 202 million. However, from June 4th to August 13th of this year, the number of fund unit holders fell below 200 for 50 consecutive working days, triggering the termination clause in the fund contract. In terms of performance, the total returns for the A and C classes of Anxin Steady Qihang One-Year Holding Mixed Fund since inception were 10.15% and 8.93% respectively, both underperforming their performance benchmarks. Following lackluster performance, the fund experienced concentrated redemptions after the holding period ended, with its scale continuously shrinking. In Q4 2023, net redemptions reached 29 million units, dropping the scale to 174 million yuan. In Q1 2024, there were net redemptions of 105 million units, reducing the scale to 69 million yuan. Since then, both the fund's period-end shares and scale have remained below 60 million units and 60 million yuan.

Overall, statistics from fund announcements show that as of August 28th, 35 funds have completed liquidation in August, with another 17 funds in the process of liquidation. For instance, the Huatai Baoxing Zunxiang Three-Monthly Regular Open Bond Fund entered its liquidation process on August 25th after the fund's net asset value fell below 50 million yuan at the close of the last day of its twentieth open period, triggering the termination conditions of the fund contract.