Since the beginning of the year, amid complex and volatile international geopolitical conditions, HALO assets characterized by heavy capital investment and high barriers have increasingly become a popular direction for capital allocation. Among them, benefiting from the significant weight of index constituents in typical HALO assets such as petroleum and petrochemicals (11.20%), basic chemicals (11.06%), and non-ferrous metals (9.96%), the Cash Flow ETF (563390), one of the market's first ETFs tracking the CSI Cash Flow Index, has seen net inflows for 40 out of 42 trading days this year, accumulating a total of 2.142 billion yuan in inflows, indicating a notable rise in trading enthusiasm.
With accelerating influxes of incremental capital, exchange data shows that as of March 11, 2026, the fund size and shares of the Cash Flow ETF (563390) have achieved weekly growth for nearly nine consecutive weeks, reaching 3.043 billion yuan and 2.106 billion shares respectively, both setting new historical highs.
From a long-term allocation perspective, the free cash flow strategy, represented by the CSI Cash Flow Index, may be gaining multiple supports. On one hand, geopolitical factors such as the Iran-Israel conflict have driven a periodic decline in global risk appetite, making value assets with solid fundamentals and ample free cash flow more aligned with investors' demand for "certainty" in allocation. On the other hand, in recent years, A-share listed companies have adopted a more cautious approach to capital expenditures, gradually shifting their operational focus from scale expansion to pursuing profit quality and stable cash flow. Among the 57 listed companies that have disclosed their 2025 annual reports, 37 have achieved dual growth in net profit and revenue, accounting for over 60%.
It is reported that the Cash Flow ETF (563390) aims to closely track the CSI Cash Flow Index using a full replication method. This index innovatively incorporates a profitability quality screening factor in its compilation rules, requiring constituent stocks to have "positive net cash flow from operating activities for five consecutive years" and "profitability quality ranking in the top 80% of the sample," aiming to select a group of high-quality listed companies with strong cash flow ratios and cash flow generation capabilities.
Benefiting from the relatively stringent stock selection logic of the underlying index, historical performance reviews show that the CSI Cash Flow Index has also demonstrated outstanding long-term performance. Wind data indicates that since its base date (December 31, 2013), the CSI Cash Flow Total Return Index has achieved a cumulative increase of 876.25%, with an annualized return of 21.21%, significantly outperforming the 16.13% and 16.37% annualized returns of the CSI 300 Cash Flow Total Return Index and CSI 500 Cash Flow Total Return Index over the same period. It is expected to become another important core holding in asset portfolios due to its long-term allocation value across cycles.
The manager of the Cash Flow ETF (563390), Huatai-PineBridge, is one of China's first ETF managers and also one of the earliest fund companies to layout dividend strategy ETFs, possessing over 19 years of extensive operational management experience in the Smart Beta strategy field. Besides the Cash Flow ETF (563390), it has also created a suite of five Smart Beta strategy "dividend products," including the market's first low-volatility dividend theme ETF (established December 19, 2018) – the Low Volatility Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (512890), the first Smart Beta ETF (established November 17, 2006) – the Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (510880), the first ETF (established April 8, 2022) investing in Hong Kong Stock Connect high-dividend (CNY) stocks via the QDII model – the Hong Kong Stock Connect Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (513530), and the Hong Kong Stock Connect Low Volatility Dividend ETF Huatai-PineBridge (520890) focusing on Hong Kong-listed low-volatility dividend assets. Exchange data shows that as of March 11, 2026, the combined scale of its dividend-focused ETFs reached 52.395 billion yuan.
The MACD golden cross signal has formed, and these stocks are performing well.
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