Since late February 2026, escalating geopolitical risks and increased volatility in external markets have heightened attention toward high-dividend assets, which offer relatively predictable payouts, lower valuations, and reduced trading congestion. These assets have become a key defensive allocation tool for many investors seeking relative certainty.
Simultaneously, amid market anxiety driven by the rapid iteration of AI technology, the value of HALO assets—characterized by "heavy assets and low obsolescence rates"—is being re-evaluated. Typical HALO sectors include power grids, pipelines, utilities, transportation infrastructure, critical machinery, and long-cycle industrial capacity. These areas not only possess barriers that are difficult for technology to replace or disrupt but also represent essential hard assets for AI development. They largely overlap with A-share high-dividend sectors and are expected to benefit alongside the dividend investment style.
Driven by rising safe-haven demand due to geopolitical uncertainty and the emergence of HALO trading, market interest has revived in the first low-volatility dividend-themed ETF—the Low-Volatility Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (512890). Wind data shows that this ETF received capital inflows for two consecutive trading days, with cumulative net inflows reaching 2.866 billion yuan since the beginning of the year. It is the only dividend-themed ETF in the market with net inflows exceeding 2 billion yuan during the same period.
According to the latest exchange data, accelerated capital inflows into the Low-Volatility Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (512890) have pushed its fund shares and net asset value to 25.265 billion units and 29.858 billion yuan, respectively. It remains the only dividend-themed ETF with assets exceeding 20 billion yuan, highlighting its liquidity and scale advantages.
As one of China's first ETF managers, Huatai-PineBridge Fund has accumulated over 19 years of experience in dividend-themed index investing. The firm has built a "dividend suite" of ETFs with total assets under management reaching 51.478 billion yuan, accounting for one-quarter of the total scale of dividend-themed ETFs in the market. As of the latest reporting period, these funds have generated cumulative profits of 9.879 billion yuan for holders.
The five ETFs in Huatai-PineBridge’s dividend suite each have distinct features. The Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (510880) is the first dividend-themed index fund in the A-share market and has distributed 5.18 billion yuan in dividends since its establishment 19 years ago. The Low-Volatility Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (512890) is the first and only low-volatility dividend ETF exceeding 20 billion yuan in scale; its Y-share feeder fund is a popular choice among personal pension index products. The Central SOE Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (561580) is the first dual-themed ETF combining "central SOEs" and "dividends." The Hong Kong Stock Connect Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (513530) and the Hong Kong Stock Connect Low-Volatility Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (520890) focus on high-dividend assets in Hong Kong stocks. The former uses a QDII structure, offering certain advantages in Hong Kong dividend tax treatment, while the latter incorporates a low-volatility factor, enhancing its defensive characteristics in the more volatile Hong Kong market.