As the 2026 market approaches the 100-day mark, performance divergence among public funds has intensified significantly. According to the latest data, the performance gap between the best and worst-performing funds across the market has now exceeded 92%. Among them, optical communication-themed funds have led the rally, while products heavily invested in Hong Kong-listed internet stocks and humanoid robotics have continued to underperform, highlighting a stark contrast in sector investment outcomes.
Optical-themed funds have seen their performance surge continuously. Despite recent heightened volatility in the A-share market, the optical communication sector has bucked the trend and strengthened, becoming a key driver behind the rising net asset values of numerous funds. Products with significant exposure to this sector have experienced a concentrated surge in performance, with their net values repeatedly hitting new record highs.
At the fund level, it is evident that top performers this year, such as Guoshou'anbao Digital Economy, Jinxin Quantitative Select, Guoshou'anbao Strategy Select, and Huatai-PineBridge Quality Growth, have all heavily invested in optical communication concept companies. These active equity funds have each achieved year-to-date gains exceeding 30%.
In market trading, recent hotspots have focused on segments like Optical Circuit Switching (OCS), Co-packaged Optics (CPO), and optical fibers, with individual stocks delivering standout performances. On April 3, Dekori surged by the 20% daily limit, Tengjing Technology closed up 19.22%, while key players like Guangku Technology and Guangxun Technology also advanced strongly. Within the CPO segment, Robotec and Yuanjie Technology likewise moved higher, and fiber optic concept stock Changfei Fiber continued to hit new historical price peaks.
Year-to-date, Changfei Fiber's share price has more than doubled, Dekori has risen over 79%, and Tengjing Technology has nearly doubled. Robotec and Yuanjie Technology have also posted solid performances, trending independently in the A-share market.
The strong secondary market performance is underpinned by a supportive industry cycle. As global tech giants accelerate their deployment of AI computing clusters, demand for core components such as optical modules and fiber optic cables continues to expand.
Upstream raw material prices are also rising decisively. Data shows that in March 2026, the spot price of domestic G652.D bare optical fiber surged 165% month-on-month from January, with a year-on-year increase of 418%, indicating a deepening price inflation cycle.
The sector has also gained policy support. On April 2, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on launching a special action to empower small and medium-sized enterprises with inclusive computing power, highlighting the promotion of technologies like OCS to reduce network latency between end-users and servers.
Many institutions believe that, from a medium- to long-term perspective, growth momentum in the communications equipment industry chain remains robust. The current explosion in AI computing demand is still in its early stages, and the ongoing global wave of large-scale data center construction will sustain the uptrend in demand for upstream core components like optical fibers and modules. For instance, Tianfeng Securities has expressed firm optimism about the sustained growth of optical interconnection—covering optical chips, devices, modules, equipment, switching, and fiber cables—driven by the simultaneous volume growth of 800G and 1.6T optical modules, as well as the emergence of new optical interconnection technologies such as CPO, NPO, XPO, 3.2T, OCS, and OIO. Optical interconnection is expected to further penetrate computing connectivity, benefiting the entire industrial chain and unlocking greater growth potential in the coming years.
The performance gap between the best and worst-performing public funds this year has exceeded 92%. With the first quarter of 2026 concluded and the second quarter underway, market conditions remain challenging, and fund performance dispersion has widened further. Overall, the performance spread across the full market has surpassed 92%.
Amid factors such as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, crude oil prices have risen sharply, leading gains among commodities. QDII funds and commodity-focused funds invested in oil and gas-related assets have achieved considerable returns.
Among QDII funds, Southern Crude Oil, E Fund Crude Oil, and Harvest Crude Oil have recorded year-to-date returns of 64.91%, 59.71%, and 58.08%, respectively, making them the current top performers. These three funds primarily invest in overseas crude oil-themed assets.
Since the start of the year, A-shares have experienced significant volatility. Major indices have declined, with the Shanghai Composite Index down 2.24%, the CSI 300 down 4.09%, and the ChiNext Index down 1.67%.
GF Vision Select, an active equity fund, has posted a year-to-date gain of over 60.29%.
Additionally, several other active equity funds, including Guoshou'anbao Digital Economy, Jinxin Quantitative Select, Puying Ansheng Digital Economy, Guoshou'anbao Strategy Select, Huashang Zhiyuan Return, Huatai-PineBridge Quality Growth, and Ping An Technology Select, have all achieved gains exceeding 30% year-to-date.
It is clear that optical-themed funds and crude oil-themed funds dominate the top ranks of the performance leaderboard.
At the same time, amid A-share fluctuations, over half of all active equity funds have reported negative returns this year. Wind data shows that the偏股混合型基金指数 has returned 0.24% year-to-date.
Looking at individual fund performances, divergence is pronounced. The worst-performing fund has seen its net value drop by over 27% year-to-date, with a total of 38 funds declining by more than 20%. These include funds focused on Hong Kong internet stocks, humanoid robotics, and aviation themes.
Many fund managers remain optimistic about localized structural opportunities despite the weak and volatile performance of equity markets since the beginning of the year. They maintain that corporate profitability remains the core determinant of stock pricing.
Nong Bingli, a fund manager at Invesco Great Wall's equity investment department, believes that overseas geopolitical conflicts have temporarily increased market volatility and dampened risk appetite. However, he argues that such factors primarily affect short-term market rhythm and valuation fluctuations. Over the medium to long term, corporate earnings power remains the fundamental anchor for stock valuations. In the AI industry, 2026 marks an acceleration phase for Agentic AI, particularly in coding, where improvements in model capabilities and commercial monetization are creating a positive feedback loop. Overseas Cloud Service Providers' (CSPs) demand for computing resources continues to strengthen, and the rise of high-value inference scenarios further elevates the importance of network efficiency, system architecture, and hardware coordination. Hardware optimization and technological upgrades focused on the inference segment are likely to become a key theme in the next phase of AI infrastructure development. He remains bullish on the earnings potential and growth prospects of areas like optical interconnection and heterogeneous computing.
Liu Jiang, a fund manager at Great Wall Fund, is openly optimistic about the long-term prospects of the AI industry. He views the current phase as still early to mid-stage, presenting continued opportunities for value discovery. However, his approach is not a broad-based bet on "AI concepts"; instead, he focuses on segments within the industry chain that offer high certainty, early benefits, and clear competitive moats—specifically, the "picks and shovels" of the AI industry, namely computing infrastructure. He believes the computing power chain, as the essential enabler, will continue to benefit from demand growth driven by industry expansion.
Within the computing power chain, Liu Jiang pays particular attention to the optical communication sector. His rationale extends beyond rising computing demand to include significant technological advancements within optical communication itself. He points out that, from an industrial logic perspective, optical communication, as a critical link in the AI computing chain, is on a long-term trajectory of increasing penetration. Initiatives by overseas tech giants to advance new solutions like OCS and CPO underscore the growing importance of optical interconnection, driving up its value contribution.
It is worth noting that most fund managers tend to follow market trends, moving in the direction of the most certain momentum. However, a minority adopt a contrarian approach, positioning early.
Chen Jinwei, a fund manager at Penghua Fund known for his contrarian stance, is most optimistic about mid-cycle industries (represented by chemicals) and domestic demand-driven sectors like consumer and healthcare. He favors mid-cycle industries benefiting from "anti-involution" trends and began significantly increasing exposure to sectors like chemicals starting in the third quarter of 2025. These areas performed reasonably well in the second half of 2025, but he believes a substantial expectation gap still exists—for instance, in chemicals, market expectations remain subdued. Consumer and healthcare have been among the worst-performing sectors over the past five years, but Chen has been positive on domestic demand structural opportunities since 2025 and still considers them potentially the sectors with the largest upside and greatest expectation gap over the next five years. He judges that the current market's unanimous pessimism towards consumer stocks contains clear irrationality, and an inflection point may be near.
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