Are you familiar with the 'New Three Golds'? Data from Ant Fortune reveals that by the end of 2025, over 21 million users had allocated funds to the 'New Three Golds'—money market funds, bond funds, and gold funds—with young users accounting for nearly half of this group.
This trend has garnered significant market attention. Why these specific assets? Why are they popular with young people? This analysis will systematically examine the current state, underlying causes, and deeper logic behind young people's adoption of the 'New Three Golds' from a fund perspective.
What are the 'New Three Golds'?
The 'New Three Golds' favored by young people are not the traditional wedding jewelry trio (gold ring, necklace, and bracelet) but a financial portfolio combination of 'money market funds + bond funds + gold funds.' This combination emphasizes low barriers to entry, stable returns, and risk mitigation. Each component serves a distinct, complementary role.
First, money market funds aim for principal safety, high liquidity, and stable returns, making them ideal for parking short-term idle cash. Their returns typically exceed those of demand deposits while offering similar liquidity. The money market fund sector has seen rapid growth in recent years, reaching a scale of 15 trillion yuan by the end of 2025. The share held by individual investors has also been steadily increasing, reaching 75% by the end of 2025.
Second, bond funds come in various types. Pure bond funds invest 100% in bond assets, including short-term, medium-to-long-term, and convertible bond funds. Among these, short-term bond funds carry the lowest risk, while convertible bond funds, possessing both debt and equity characteristics, exhibit significantly higher volatility than short-term and medium-to-long-term bond funds. There are also hybrid bond funds, which primarily invest in bonds but allocate a portion to equities or other assets, such as primary and secondary bond funds. Since secondary bond funds can invest directly in stocks, their volatility is generally higher than that of primary bond funds.
Overall, bond funds focus on stable capital appreciation, offering relatively steady returns with lower volatility. The bond fund market is the second-largest after money market funds, exceeding 11 trillion yuan in scale by the end of 2025. In recent years, the proportion of bond fund shares held by individual investors has shown an upward trend, averaging 29% by the end of 2025. Short-term bond funds, with the lowest risk, had the highest individual investor share at 58%, while hybrid bond funds also exceeded 40%. Medium-to-long-term bond funds had the lowest individual share at 16%.
Third, compared to physical gold, gold funds not only share its advantages but also offer higher liquidity and lower holding costs. In China's public fund market, gold funds primarily exist as Gold ETFs and their feeder funds. Over the past three years, Gold ETFs have experienced rapid growth. By the end of 2025, there were 14 Gold ETFs with a total market size exceeding 240 billion yuan. Concurrently, the share held by individual investors has been growing, reaching 21.52% by the end of 2025, indicating more individual participation in gold investing through exchange-traded products.
Gold ETFs track the price of gold spot contracts, and their underlying assets are primarily these contracts. Therefore, for investors, holding a Gold ETF is akin to holding physical gold. Due to management fees, custody fees, and the need to manage subscriptions and redemptions, these funds cannot hold 100% of their assets in gold spot contracts, leading to long-term returns that may slightly lag behind the spot price. However, Gold ETFs can potentially enhance returns and narrow this gap by earning lending fees from lending out physical gold. Investors should not be overly concerned about tracking error; generally, larger ETFs tend to have better tracking performance.
For off-exchange investors, Gold ETF feeder funds provide a very convenient channel for investing in gold assets, making them popular among individual investors. By the end of 2025, the size of Gold ETF feeder funds accounted for 64% of the total Gold ETF market. Within these feeder funds, individual investors held a dominant 94% share.
The low correlation characteristics among these three 'New Three Golds' assets make them naturally suited for constructing a 'steady yet progressive' investment portfolio, aligning perfectly with the core desire of today's young people for 'stability and volatility resistance.'
Why Are Young People Embracing the 'New Three Golds'?
Young people's choice of the 'New Three Golds' is not accidental. The following factors collectively form the internal logic behind this phenomenon.
● Macroeconomic Environment as a Catalyst: A Rational Choice in a Low-Interest-Rate Setting Currently, the three-year and five-year fixed deposit rates at commercial banks have fallen below 2%. Meanwhile, although the Consumer Price Index (CPI) remains low, service prices and prices for some goods continue to experience moderate increases. This means that keeping all funds in bank deposits risks a gradual erosion of real purchasing power. In this context, money market funds and bond funds offer relatively attractive alternatives. Gold funds, benefiting from geopolitical risks and global central bank gold-buying trends, demonstrated strong safe-haven appeal during 2024-2025.
● The Role of Risk Preference: Seeking Stability and Volatility Resistance Among young users allocating to the 'New Three Golds,' most prioritize 'controlling volatility' over pursuing high returns. The behavioral finance theory of 'myopic loss aversion' suggests investors are far more sensitive to short-term losses than they are pleased by equivalent gains. Having grown up in the information age and bombarded daily with vast amounts of market data, young people are more susceptible to emotional interference from short-term fluctuations. Therefore, even though equity assets might offer higher expected returns in the long run, their short-term剧烈 volatility can make them difficult for young investors to hold onto. The low-volatility nature of the 'New Three Golds' helps them overcome this psychological hurdle.
The 'New Three Golds' also provide young people with a 'hands-off' approach to wealth management. It doesn't require daily market monitoring, studying K-line charts, or predicting market trends. For most young people busy with work and lacking time for in-depth research, this represents a more practical and sustainable choice.
● Empowerment by Internet Platforms: Lowering Barriers Unlike the traditional model requiring visits to bank counters or brokerage branches, contemporary young people are accustomed to completing all financial operations on internet platforms or mobile apps. These digital platforms offer distinct advantages: First, extremely low thresholds: investments can start from as little as 1 yuan, making participation almost universal. Second, intuitive presentation: yields, risk levels, and historical drawdowns are clearly displayed. Third, convenient operations: one-click purchases, automatic regular investing, and智能调仓. Fourth, abundant investor education:普及理财知识 through short videos,图文, and live streams. These factors significantly lower the barrier for young people to access the 'New Three Golds,' enabling even those without any financial background to easily complete asset allocation.
● Social Transmission and the 'Influencer' Effect: The Formation of Youth Investment Circles On social platforms, content related to the 'New Three Golds' has gained substantial traction. Keywords like 'investment novice,' 'stable wealth management,' and 'savings plan' have become popular tags. Young people share their own 'New Three Golds' allocation strategies,收益 screenshots, and操作心得, forming a positive, community-driven理财社交圈. This 'influencer' effect differs from traditional financial institution marketing—it's built on the口碑 of real users, fostering higher trust and faster传播速度. When young people see their peers earning steady returns through the 'New Three Golds,' they become more willing to try it themselves.
Avoiding Four Common Misconceptions When Investing in the 'New Three Golds'
Despite their popularity, the 'New Three Golds' are not without risks. Investors need to remain rational and avoid falling into new cognitive traps.
● Money Market Funds Are Not 'Absolutely Capital Guaranteed' Although money market funds have historically rarely experienced negative returns, theoretical loss potential exists under极端 market conditions, such as a liquidity crisis. Furthermore, their yields are closely tied to market interest rates; if rates decline further, their returns will also decrease.
● Bond Funds Can Also 'Decline' The 'wealth management product redemption wave' at the end of 2022 served as a lesson for many investors: bond funds can also fall in value. When market interest rates rise rapidly, bond prices fall, leading to drawdowns in the net asset value of bond funds. Although bond fund volatility is typically lower than that of stock funds, 'stable' does not equate to 'capital guaranteed.'
● Gold Fund Volatility Is Not Low The underlying asset of gold funds is gold, whose price can experience significant fluctuations. From 2020 to 2025, the annualized volatility of international gold prices was around 17%, comparable to stock indices. Gold funds primarily offer 'hedging' functionality, not 'stability.' It's crucial to correctly understand the meaning of a 'safe-haven asset'—it hedges against极端 risks (like war, inflation), not日常波动.
● The Illusion of Low Correlation While the 'New Three Golds'确实 exhibit low correlation among themselves, this characteristic can change under different market conditions. For example, during periods of liquidity tightening, stocks, bonds, and gold might all decline simultaneously—a 'triple kill' scenario. Investors cannot simply assume that 'diversification guarantees safety.'
Asset Evolution, Unchanging Core Pursuit
The shift from the 'Old Three Golds' to the 'New Three Golds' represents a change in asset form, but the underlying pursuit of security and certainty remains constant.
The popularity of the 'New Three Golds' is a significant marker of the maturation of young people's wealth management观念. It indicates that an increasing number of young individuals are beginning to understand that wealth management is not gambling but a form of managing life's节奏 and future expectations. Moreover, true financial maturity should not stop at 'choosing the right products' but should be built upon a profound understanding of one's own risk tolerance, investment goals, and behavioral biases. Based on this, the following suggestions are offered to young investors:
First, Understand, Don't Blindly Follow: Learn about the respective sources of returns and risk characteristics of each component of the 'New Three Golds' rather than simply following trends. Second, Allocate, Don't Bet Everything: Treat the 'New Three Golds' as part of an asset allocation strategy, not the entirety of it. Third, Think Long-Term, Not Rigidly: Maintain a long-term perspective and regularly review whether your portfolio still aligns with your goals. Fourth, Be Rational, Not Overconfident: Acknowledge your potential cognitive biases and utilize tools like regular investing or智能投顾 for behavioral discipline when necessary.
For the fund industry, the 'New Three Golds' trend presents both fresh opportunities—to develop products better suited to young people's needs and provide more empathetic services—and practical challenges—to guide this demographic in rational asset allocation and safeguard investor trust amidst market fluctuations. Seizing the opportunities and正视 the challenges can drive the fund industry to gain deeper insights into the new generation's investment preferences and value propositions, breaking down专业壁垒 with lightweight, scenario-based, and陪伴式 services. It can also encourage the industry to adhere to compliance底线 and a long-term philosophy, using稳健的业绩 and transparent operations to build a solid foundation of trust, providing young investors with全周期陪伴 and professional empowerment throughout their investment journey.
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