As the second quarter of 2026 approaches, investors are seeking guidance on stock market opportunities. Leading mutual fund managers from the first quarter have shared their insights.
The first quarter of 2026 concluded this week, revealing the initial rankings for public offering funds. GF Vision Intelligence Select, managed by veteran Tang Xiaobin, led the pack with a net value growth rate of 58.03%, holding an approximate 13-percentage-point lead over the second-place fund.
Concurrently, China Life-Pioneer Asset Management, traditionally less dominant in equity investments, saw multiple products climb to the top of the rankings. Examples include China Life-Pioneer Digital Economy and China Life-Pioneer Industrial Upgrade, which ranked in the top ten among stock funds, and China Life-Pioneer Core Industry and China Life-Pioneer Strategy Select, which made the top ten among mixed funds. Two of these funds are managed by Yan Kun, while the other two have Meng Yijia among their managers. Notably, the Digital Economy fund, with a net value growth rate of 45.38%, ranked first among stock funds.
From a fund manager perspective, a name absent from the spotlight for some time, Gai Junlong, has re-emerged. One of the former "Baoying Four Dragons," Gai has been managing products at Hongtu Innovation Fund since late 2018. He currently oversees five funds, all of which achieved approximately 20% growth in the first quarter, ranking near the top of their categories.
So, how do these leading individual products, companies, and revitalized veterans view investments for the second quarter?
In a written response, China Life-Pioneer fund manager Yan Kun emphasized, "Geopolitical conflicts have introduced significant uncertainty to global stock markets. Given the current situation, Chinese assets are showing a trend of becoming a global safe haven. It is time to be optimistic about the Chinese stock market; the current moment could be a crucial opportunity for the revaluation of Chinese assets, similar to last year's tariff conflicts. From an allocation perspective, I believe AI is the core theme of the digital economy and currently presents investment opportunities. In the second quarter, I will continue to focus my main efforts on researching the AI industry chain, targeting companies within AI sub-sectors that have large growth potential, where Chinese firms possess competitive advantages and have valuation advantages compared to overseas counterparts."
**GF Vision Intelligence Select: Q2 Focus on Storage and Fiber Optics**
The shift in leadership from Western Advantage Strategy Preferred, which led in the first two months, to GF Vision Intelligence Select by the end of the quarter broadly reflects the market's evolution from a focus on resource stocks to a broader rally encompassing optical communications, price increases, green power, and lithium mining by the quarter's end. How did GF Vision Intelligence Select manage to come from behind?
Wind data shows that GF Vision Intelligence Select was established on November 22, 2022, and has been managed since inception by the company's veteran manager, Tang Xiaobin. The fund's ranking among peers has improved rapidly year-over-year: it ranked 2873 out of 3287 funds in 2023, 2948 out of 3926 funds in 2024, 1646 out of 4409 funds in 2025, and surged to first place out of 5072 funds in 2026.
Based on the fund's top ten holdings from its Q4 2025 report, the manager replaced all ten stocks, successfully capturing several top performers including Biwin Storage, Yaxing Integration, Purain, and Demingli. Particularly, the new top holding, Biwin Storage, saw its stock price double in Q1 2026. Furthermore, all ten holdings from the Q4 2025 report had appreciated in price by the end of Q1 2026 trading.
In the recently disclosed annual report, Tang Xiaobin stated that looking ahead to 2026, the A-share tech sector is undergoing a profound structural transformation. If 2023 to 2025 represented a "Cambrian explosion" for AI technology, marked by some noise and无序 competition, then 2026 is poised to enter a "Darwinian moment." The key driver of this tech cycle is AI, and AI large models place disruptive demands on storage performance. The storage industry is facing a combination of "soaring demand and constrained supply," possessing the potential for a "super cycle." The surge in AI computing power is driving explosive demand for high-end storage like HBM and DDR5, with the supply-demand gap continuously widening, initiating an upward price cycle for DRAM and NAND. Domestic companies, leveraging technological breakthroughs and substitution benefits, are rapidly making inroads in the mid-range market, with the entire industry chain from chips to packaging and testing standing to benefit, potentially making it one of the most certain tech sectors for the full year. From a long-cycle perspective, the storage industry still has substantial room for growth.
"However, it is inevitable that industry development is cyclical, with fluctuations in both demand and supply. We anticipate that stock prices of companies in this sector may experience some volatility. As fund managers, we hope investors fully understand the risk-return profile of the fund before making investment decisions. Ensure you invest idle funds, diversify appropriately, and approach asset allocation rationally and with a long-term perspective," he further emphasized.
In his written response, Tang Xiaobin again highlighted the storage and fiber optic sectors. He explained that AI is the most critical driver of the current tech cycle, and the large-scale deployment of AI computing power places disruptive demands on two fundamental infrastructure components: data storage and high-speed interconnection. Storage and fiber optic cables are precisely the two core sectors experiencing the most severe supply-demand mismatch across the entire global AI-driven industry chain, both potentially possessing the characteristics of a "super cycle."
Elaborating on the storage sector, he detailed the reasons for his optimism. Developments in new technologies like storage pooling, GPU direct connect, and HBF are making competition in the storage industry more differentiated and enhancing its growth attributes. From a supply-demand perspective, demand for storage chips benefits from AI industry expansion, with AI model training/inference, long-context, and multi-modal applications spurring explosive demand for high-end storage. On the supply side, the complete cycle from planning to mass production for core capacity takes several years, making large-scale new capacity additions unlikely in 2026. Additionally, the ongoing shift of traditional capacity towards AI-specific high-end products further exacerbates the shortage of effective supply, continuously widening the supply-demand gap and fueling expectations for a medium-to-long-term price increase cycle.
Regarding the fiber optic sector, Tang Xiaobin analyzed that on the demand side, AI computing center interconnects and cross-campus data center networking are driving a surge in demand for high-end fiber optic cables, with the proportion of demand for premium categories steadily rising. Global total demand in 2026 is expected to grow 15%-20% compared to 2025. On the supply side, the industry faces similar rigid constraints of long-cycle capacity expansion, with no large-scale new optical preform capacity expected to come online within 2026. Fiber optic cables are expected to enter a景气 cycle characterized by depleted inventories and rising prices.
He acknowledged that core original manufacturers within the domestic storage industry chain are not yet listed, so the actual profit potential accessible to the market may be relatively limited. However, if fiber optics becomes the "next stop" after storage, leading domestic enterprises in the fiber optic sector might be better positioned to dominate profit distribution within the industry chain and fully benefit from this "super cycle."
**China Life-Pioneer's Remarkable Shift into an Equity Powerhouse** **Fund Manager Yan Kun's Focus on AI Yields Significant Results**
From a fund company perspective, considering both active equity stock funds and mixed funds separately, China Life-Pioneer Asset Management had the highest number of products entering the top ten lists for both categories, totaling four funds. Among these, the China Life-Pioneer Digital Economy fund managed by Yan Kun achieved the highest ranking with a return rate of 45.38%.
According to Eastmoney data, Yan Kun previously worked as a researcher at Golden Eagle Fund and joined China Life-Pioneer Asset Management in March 2018, serving successively as an industry researcher and assistant fund manager. He became the fund manager of China Life-Pioneer Strategy Select Flexible Configuration Hybrid Fund (LOF) on December 28, 2023, and began managing the China Life-Pioneer Digital Economy Stock Fund in March 2024.
In terms of hard metrics measuring a fund manager's capability, as of December 31, 2025, although the total assets under management for his two funds were only 618 million yuan, the best return during his tenure for a fund under his management had already doubled, reaching 124.90%. This fund is the aforementioned thematic product, China Life-Pioneer Digital Economy.
Yan Kun previously stated, "In Q4 2025, this fund continued to focus on investments in the digital economy direction, adjusting the portfolio structure based on industry and market changes, reducing exposure to AI applications and increasing exposure to overseas AI computing power. Looking ahead, the fund will closely follow changes in the digital economy industry to adjust investments, uncover individual stock opportunities within the sector, and pay attention to risks." According to the fund's latest published 2025 annual report, the portfolio held only 19 stocks at the end of last year, and from the 11th position among the "hidden" heavy holdings onwards, Yan Kun's allocation to each was less than 4%.
Focusing on the Q1 performance of the top ten heavy holdings, four of them saw stock price increases exceeding 30%. Particularly notable was the tenth-largest holding, the Hong Kong-listed company Changfei Optical Fiber Cable, whose stock price surged by 253.97% in the first quarter. Additionally, the eighth-largest holding, Yuanjie Technology, and the sixth-largest holding, Tianfu Communication, saw gains around the 50% mark, approximately 56.61% and 48.55% respectively.
He emphasized that China Life-Pioneer Digital Economy is a fund dedicated to the digital economy direction. In the first quarter, it focused on the AI industry chain based on the core logic of the digital economy theme, adopting an overall strategy of "balancing software and hardware, allocating across A-shares and H-shares." On the AI hardware side, the primary focus in Q1 was identifying core segments experiencing price increases amid global AI computing power shortages, such as optical fibers. The fund also continued its allocation from the previous quarter to leading AI computing chain companies with strong performance and low valuations. On the AI software side, Q1 involved selecting individual stocks based on criteria of "low valuation, large potential, and high certainty."
Comparing this to his other managed fund, China Life-Pioneer Strategy Select, and using its Q4 2025 top ten holdings as a reference, their performance in the first quarter appeared even stronger. Eight of the ten companies saw price increases, with only Zhongji Innolight and Shijia Photon experiencing slight declines. Among the eight gainers, besides the shared heavy holding of Hong Kong's Changfei Optical Fiber Cable, was Huilu Ecology, a Shenzhen main-board listed company with a year-to-date increase of over 70%.
When assessing the market outlook, he stated, "I believe market concerns regarding AI return expectations will be effectively corrected this year. Based on the data we track, global AI model revenue has shown very明显的 acceleration since Q4 last year. I tend to believe this trend is sustainable. Once this trend persists and gains broad market recognition, the expected funding source for AI capital expenditures is likely to shift from debt leverage to revenue闭环, effectively alleviating market worries about AI returns. That point could mark the main upward wave for AI stocks this year."
Additionally, Wind disclosed research records show that on March 19 this year, Yan Kun and a colleague conducted an on-site meeting research with Yunnan Chihong.
**Hongtu Innovation Writes a Legend for a Niche Fund Company** **Veteran Gai Junlong Leads Five Funds to a Successful Comeback**
Looking at the Q1 public fund rankings from another angle, Hongtu Innovation Fund's current Investment Director, Gai Junlong, emerged as a "model" of consistent performance across all his managed products. He currently manages five funds at the company, all of which achieved net value growth rates around 20% in Q1 2026, with the best performer being Hongtu Innovation Technology Stock at 23.31%.
Eastmoney data shows that Gai Junlong previously held roles as an industry researcher at Great Wall Fund, and then as a researcher, dedicated account investment manager, and fund manager at Baoying Fund. He is currently the company's Investment Director and manages the following funds: Hongtu Innovation Transformation Select Flexible Configuration Hybrid Fund (LOF), Hongtu Innovation New Technology Stock Fund, Hongtu Innovation Technology Innovation Stock Fund (LOF), Hongtu Innovation Intelligent Manufacturing Hybrid Fund, and Hongtu Innovation景气 Return Hybrid Fund.
In terms of hard metrics, this veteran with nearly 11 years of cumulative experience, although perhaps constrained by platform size with AUM of only 662 million yuan, has achieved a best tenure return of 390.62% for a fund under his management—nearly a fourfold increase. This fund is Hongtu Innovation Transformation Select Hybrid, which he has managed the longest at the company.
In Q1 2026, this fund's net value grew by approximately 19.82%. The fund's latest annual report disclosed this week that Gai Junlong held 23 stocks in total at the end of last year, but only the top 15 holdings had weights exceeding 3%, and only the top 7 exceeded 5%. From this perspective, his portfolio is relatively concentrated.
Narrowing the focus to the performance in Q1 2026 of the top ten holdings as of December 31, 2025, six of these stocks achieved price appreciation. The top three performers were Changguang Huaxin, Yuanjie Technology, and Tianfu Communication, all with gains around 50%, particularly the STAR Market company Changguang Huaxin, which rose by 64.34%.
In the fund's 2025 annual report disclosed this week, Gai Junlong reflected, "In the first half of the year, we remained optimistic about artificial intelligence, particularly the investment opportunities in domestic and international AI computing infrastructure and applications spurred by significant new model releases from major companies like DeepSeek. Furthermore, after a long adjustment cycle, traditional sectors like defense and new energy were also expected to present good investment opportunities. Therefore, the fund's main allocation directions in the first half were artificial intelligence (AI computing power, AI applications), defense (including commercial aerospace and low-altitude economy), TMT, and some bottom-up selected companies. In the third quarter, the main allocation directions were artificial intelligence (AI computing power) and TMT, with gradual increases in the energy storage产业链 towards the quarter's end. Due to continued optimism about artificial intelligence, including computing infrastructure and AI application development, and anticipating continuous investment opportunities across the AI industry chain—such as computing power, liquid cooling, storage—the main allocation direction in the fourth quarter also remained artificial intelligence (AI computing power) and TMT."
When assessing the market outlook for this year, Gai Junlong also emphasized, "From an optimistic standpoint, 2026 also presents various potential investment opportunities. These include currently thriving sectors like artificial intelligence, energy storage (lithium battery chain), non-ferrous metals, and chemicals, as well as traditional industries that might offer opportunities from a cyclical perspective, such as baijiu, defense, and photovoltaics. There are also continuously emerging new industries like commercial aerospace, nuclear fusion, domestic computing chains, AI applications, robotics, and brain-computer interfaces. This product currently favors technology growth directions with stronger certainty but will actively track and research other industries, dynamically optimizing investment strategies based on market conditions."
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