Guotai Haitong Securities (GTHT) has released a research report stating that the current low-interest-rate environment, combined with positive returns from the equity market, is steadily driving household capital into the stock market. Brokerage firms stand to benefit across all business segments from this influx of incremental funds. Whether households increase their equity allocations through direct market participation or indirect investment channels, brokerages are positioned to gain. GTHT believes that: 1) Distribution channels are shifting from vertical traffic to public domain traffic, and brokerages that are more adaptable to this business model transformation are expected to perform better; 2) "Fixed income plus" strategies and commercial banking are anticipated to be the core drivers of this round of household capital inflow. Firms with strong capabilities in both equities and fixed income are favored, particularly those that have stakes in leading public fund management companies.
GTHT's main views are as follows: As of December 2025, household asset allocation was primarily focused on deposits, with a marginal increase in allocations to equities. The total market size of wealth management products available for household allocation reached 352.5 trillion yuan by the end of December 2025, a month-on-month increase of +1.05% and a year-on-year increase of +10.4%. The net value increase was 3.7 trillion yuan, up +364.2% month-on-month. The incremental contributions from public funds, private funds, private asset management, bank wealth management products, and deposits were +695.7 billion yuan, +59.3 billion yuan, -206.2 billion yuan, -122.3 billion yuan, and +2,585.0 billion yuan, respectively, accounting for 19%, 2%, -6%, -3%, and +70% of the total increase.
The equity market performed strongly, with rising returns on equity assets and fluctuating yields on fixed-income assets. December 2025 saw a divergence in the performance of stock and bond markets. Long-term interest rates oscillated higher, leading to volatility in fixed-income asset yields; the 10-year government bond yield rose by 0.61 basis points, while the CSI Aggregate Bond Index fell by 0.07%. Equity markets delivered impressive results, with major indices closing higher. This boosted household risk appetite, creating momentum for a shift of household deposits into higher-yielding assets. Benefiting from the equity market uptrend, the stock fund index, hybrid fund index, bond fund index, and money market fund index recorded changes of +2.12%, +3.28%, +0.17%, and +0.11%, respectively, in December.
Public Funds: Households' increased allocation to equity funds supported steady growth in the public fund scale, while the issuance of new fixed-income funds showed signs of recovery. The total scale of public funds in the market reached 37.7 trillion yuan by the end of December, a month-on-month increase of +1.88%. The scales of stock funds, hybrid funds, bond funds, and QDII funds changed by +4.39%, +2.13%, +3.92%, and +1.64% month-on-month, respectively. Regarding new issuance, the share volume of newly launched funds in December was 113.220 billion shares, up +19.72% month-on-month. Specifically, new equity fund issuance decreased by -10.73% month-on-month, while new bond fund issuance surged by +136.82% month-on-month. On the policy front, the new regulations on sales fees and the final version of the performance benchmark guidelines have been implemented, further optimizing the fund sales market and focusing on enhancing product capabilities.
Private Funds/Asset Management: New issuance of private funds saw a significant month-on-month increase. The outstanding scale of private funds was 22.2 trillion yuan at the end of December, a growth of 0.27% month-on-month. The newly registered scale of private funds was 98.90 billion yuan, an increase of +38.6% month-on-month. The outstanding scale of private asset management was 12.3 trillion yuan in December, a change of -1.65% month-on-month. Within this, the scales of equity, fixed income, commodity & financial derivatives, and hybrid categories changed year-on-year by -2.35%, -4.11%, +73.61%, and +38.69%, respectively. The new issuance scale for private asset management in December reached 81.93 billion yuan, a change of -3.86% month-on-month.
Wealth Management/Insurance/Deposits: The incremental share amount of bank wealth management products in December was -235.61 billion yuan, a month-on-month decrease of -0.81%. The increments for equity, fixed income, and cash management categories were -1.74 billion yuan, -188.54 billion yuan, and +1.88 billion yuan, respectively. Premium income for insurance companies totaled 400.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of +7.2%. Life insurance premium income rose by +8.8% year-on-year, while property and casualty insurance premium income increased by +4.4% year-on-year. The outstanding balance of RMB household deposits was 165.89 trillion yuan, a month-on-month change of +1.58%.
Risk Warning: Volatility in the equity market.
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