With both liquidity and fixed-income characteristics, the upcoming 2026 National Day holiday has made efficient management of idle on-exchange funds a key focus for the market.

Against this backdrop, bond ETFs—which offer convenient trading, transparent holdings, and diversified risk—have become an important tool for on-exchange investors to manage funds over the long holiday and pursue enhanced returns.

This category allows real-time trading on exchanges like stocks while also generating bond coupon income, combining both liquidity and fixed-income attributes.

Wind data shows that as of September 23, the circulating market value of bond ETFs across the entire market reached 1,002 billion yuan, breaking through the one-trillion-yuan mark for the first time, representing further market recognition of the allocation value of bond ETFs.

Within this trillion-yuan scale, credit bond ETFs and sci-tech innovation bond ETFs are the main contributors to growth.

Taking the highly followed credit bond ETF as an example, Guangfa Credit Bond ETF (159397) had a net asset value of approximately 20.887 billion yuan on September 23, maintaining a scale of 20 billion yuan for four consecutive trading days, ranking first among the four similar products tracking the Shenzhen Benchmark Market-Making Credit Bond Index, and becoming the first Shenzhen Benchmark Market-Making Credit Bond ETF to break through and firmly hold above 20 billion yuan.

It is reported that since its listing approximately one and a half years ago, Guangfa Credit Bond ETF has grown its scale from about 2.2 billion yuan to 20 billion yuan, an increase of about 9 times; of which, capital inflows this year have reached approximately 7.5 billion yuan, representing a growth of over 50% compared to the scale at the beginning of the year.

Three factors enhance attractiveness as capital adds to credit bond ETFs

Like most bond ETFs in the market, the participants in Guangfa Credit Bond ETF are basically all institutional investors.

According to the fund's disclosed 2025 annual report and 2026 interim report, the holders of Guangfa Credit Bond ETF are mainly institutional investors, with the institutional investor proportion remaining above 99% at the end of both reporting periods.

However, what is different is that the number of holder accounts increased significantly in the first half of this year, rising from 580 accounts in the previous year to 762 accounts, a net increase of 182 accounts, with a growth rate of 31.38%. Both the number of new accounts and the growth rate were higher than those of similar products tracking the Shenzhen Benchmark Market-Making Credit Bond Index.

Some industry insiders analyze that, affected by the domestic low interest rate environment and continuously declining bond yields, a large amount of allocation funds and safe-haven funds have flowed into bond ETF products such as Guangfa Credit Bond ETF.

Currently, the bond market is in a typical low interest rate range-bound environment, lacking significant room for large swings.

In this bond market environment, holding credit bond ETFs—which offer relatively prominent coupon income and riding effects—provides a better risk-return ratio and maximum drawdown control compared to institutional strategies of extending duration.

Specifically, three factors have increased capital's attention to credit bond ETFs: First, structural differentiation in urban investment bonds has intensified. Strictly controlling issuance thresholds and replacing overly concentrated urban investment bond holdings with benchmark market-making credit bonds with higher implied ratings can significantly improve safety margins; Second, intermediary fees for off-exchange price inquiries have raised the transaction costs of cash bonds. Institutions are more inclined to use ETFs for more efficient and convenient band operations, making ETFs an effective tool to replace cash bonds; Third, in an environment of narrow-range fluctuations in government bonds, credit bond ETFs, with their coupon advantages, better meet the allocation needs of low-to-medium volatility funds in terms of holding experience and drawdown performance.

Recently, some funds have worried that credit bond ETFs might experience deep discounts like in the second half of last year.

In response, industry insiders analyze that the deep discounts in the second half of last year mainly stemmed from temporary factors of supply-demand imbalance on the asset side, and most of these factors have now faded.

Since the beginning of this year, whether existing sci-tech innovation bond ETFs or market-making bond ETFs, their discounts have returned to a stable level, and on-exchange transaction prices basically reflect the true value of the underlying assets.

"For tool-based products like ETFs, sustained two-way trading demand is particularly important." The aforementioned industry insider analyzed that differences among different investors in allocation timing, holding periods, and position adjustment rhythms help form a match between buyer and seller demand, promoting secondary market liquidity and price discovery functions, and enhancing the product's convenience as an allocation and trading tool.

Combining the dual advantages of passive indexing and ETFs, meeting the allocation needs of prudent capital

With characteristics such as low fees, high transparency, investment diversification, and high capital utilization efficiency, bond ETFs as allocation tools have further gained investor recognition.

The scale of Guangfa Credit Bond ETF grew from 2.2 billion yuan to over 20 billion yuan in one and a half years, reflecting investors' allocation demand for high-grade, high-quality, medium-duration tool-based core holdings.

The Shenzhen Benchmark Market-Making Credit Bond Index tracked by Guangfa Credit Bond ETF is a basket of solid assets.

Information shows that as of now, the index's weighted average remaining maturity is approximately 3.30 years, and all constituent bonds have a debt or issuer rating of AAA, mainly comprised of central and state-owned enterprises in the Greater Bay Area, primarily in industries with high importance and strong stability such as local comprehensive investment platforms and public utilities.

In addition to investing in assets characterized by high grade, high quality, and medium duration, passive investing also gives it advantages such as risk diversification, transparent holdings, and strong tool-based attributes.

For example, bond ETFs adopt a dynamic sampling replication strategy. Through continuous rolling reinvestment, the product's duration is kept relatively constant, avoiding the trouble of natural duration decay from holding a single bond, making it more convenient for investors to conduct one-click core position allocation.

It is worth mentioning that Guangfa Credit Bond ETF also has stronger trading liquidity and arbitrage mechanisms endowed by ETF attributes. Combined with the dual-layer system of primary market subscription/redemption and secondary market trading, it can achieve "T+0" trading, which is convenient and efficient.

As one of the first market-making credit bond ETFs to obtain general pledged repo eligibility, investors holding this ETF can not only participate in bond index investment but also use it as collateral for financing, significantly improving capital utilization efficiency and liquidity management capabilities.

The smooth operation of benchmark market-making credit bond ETFs cannot be separated from the refined operations of fund managers and fund management companies, which is also an important reason why Guangfa Credit Bond ETF can gain recognition from numerous investors.

The fund manager of Guangfa Credit Bond ETF, Hong Zhi, has 13 years of securities industry experience and nearly 8 years of public fund investment experience. His managed products cover on-exchange credit bond ETFs and off-exchange central enterprise series credit bond index funds, with rich experience in credit asset management and cross-market product operations.

Guangfa Fund is one of the earlier fund companies in the industry to layout bond index funds. Taking credit bond indices as an example, its products cover off-exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange single-market, and Shanghai Stock Exchange single-market credit bond index funds.

Among them, Guangfa Central Enterprise 80 is the market's first Shanghai Clearing House central enterprise credit bond index fund, and Guangfa Shenzhen Benchmark Market-Making Credit Bond ETF is among the market's first batch of benchmark market-making credit bond ETFs and the first batch of credit bond ETFs to carry out pledged repo.

Data from the Galaxy Securities Fund Research Center shows that as of the end of the second quarter of 2026, since managing its first index bond fund, index bond funds under Guangfa Fund have cumulatively realized profits of 9.517 billion yuan for holders, ranking first in the entire market.

Note: The establishment date of Guangfa Credit Bond ETF is January 22, 2025. Previous fund managers (tenure dates) are: Gao Xiang (January 22, 2025 to August 11, 2026), Hong Zhi (February 13, 2025 to present). The sales fees for Guangfa Credit Bond ETF are as follows: When investors subscribe or redeem fund shares, the subscription/redemption agency broker may charge a commission of no more than 0.50%, and on-exchange trading fees are subject to what the securities company actually charges. For details, please refer to the fund's prospectus, fund contract, and other legal documents. Risk disclosure: This fund invests in the securities market. Before investing in this fund, investors need to fully understand the product characteristics of this fund and bear various risks arising from fund investment. This fund is issued and managed by Guangfa Fund Management Co., Ltd., and distribution agencies do not assume responsibility for the product's investment or redemption. Before investing, please carefully read the fund contract, prospectus, and other legal documents to fully understand the details and risk characteristics of this fund. This fund is a bond fund, and its expected risk and expected return are lower than equity funds and mixed funds, but higher than money market funds. This fund is an index fund, mainly using the sampling replication method to track the performance of the target index. Its risk-return characteristics are similar to those of the market portfolio represented by the target index. The specific risk rating results are subject to the ratings provided by the fund manager and sales institutions. Investors should choose products that match their risk tolerance and investment objectives. Funds involve risks, and investment requires caution. MACD golden cross signals have formed, and these stocks are performing well!