On August 21, multiple fund management firms issued announcements stating that, in accordance with the provisions of the Guidelines for Performance Comparison Benchmarks of Publicly Offered Securities Investment Funds (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"), they will adjust the performance comparison benchmarks for some of their public funds starting September 21, 2026. This also involves synchronized amendments to legal documents such as fund contracts, custody agreements, and prospectuses.
This marks the third batch of benchmark alignment announcements within the year since the Guidelines took effect in March, initiating a comprehensive industry-wide effort to standardize benchmarks for existing products. Industry insiders view this as evidence that the calibration of existing product benchmarks is progressing steadily as planned, with the governance of public fund products continuing to deepen.
According to the disclosed fund announcements, this round of adjustments once again spans multiple fund categories, including active equity, bond, Fund of Funds (FOF), and Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) products. The adjustments uniformly aim to align benchmarks with actual investment operations and fund contract positioning, with different categories showcasing distinct optimization logic.
For instance, adjustments to equity products mainly focus on several key dimensions. One is adjusting the weight of equity and bond benchmarks to match actual position levels. Some partial-equity funds have increased their equity benchmark weight while decreasing the bond benchmark weight, reflecting their high-equity-position operational characteristics. Conversely, some conservative mixed-asset products have lowered their equity benchmark allocation to align with their relatively low stock positions.
Another dimension involves optimizing stock benchmark indices to improve style alignment. Some products have switched their broad-based index from the CSI 300 to the more comprehensive CSI 800 Index. Thematic funds have replaced generic broad-based indices with specialized sector indices tailored to their focus areas—for example, an equipment-themed fund now corresponds to a high-end manufacturing index, and a media and internet-themed fund has split its benchmark to separately align with internet and media indices, making the benchmark more closely reflect the product's investment theme.
Additionally, there is a push to unify Hong Kong stock benchmark standards, with several products raising the weight allocated to Hong Kong equities. For example, some funds with the ability to invest in Hong Kong stocks have replaced the original Hang Seng Index with the CSI HK Stock Connect Composite Index, addressing the issue where certain index constituents were not within the investable scope of the Stock Connect program. At the same time, many products have generally increased the benchmark weight for Hong Kong-listed assets, aligning with the trend of Hong Kong stock allocation under the interconnection mechanism.
Bond products also constitute a significant part of this adjustment round. Notably, several funds that previously used "time deposit rate plus a fixed spread" as their benchmark have uniformly switched to market-based bond indices as their core benchmark, resolving issues such as disconnection from market fluctuations or the discontinuation of updates for the original interest rate benchmark data.
Furthermore, benchmark duration has been refined for bond products. A large number of medium-to-short-term bond funds and products with short holding periods have adjusted their benchmarks from comprehensive maturity bond indices to 1–3 year maturity bond indices, aligning with the actual duration control range of the fund portfolio and enhancing benchmark representativeness.
Bond variety structure is also being further refined. Some credit bond strategy products have replaced comprehensive bond indices with dedicated credit bond indices to match their high credit bond allocation. Additionally, several products have added convertible bond indices as part of their benchmark, corresponding to their actual convertible bond holdings and filling a gap in the original benchmark's asset class coverage.
For FOF and cross-border products, benchmarks are moving closer to product attributes. Some target-date retirement FOFs have adjusted their fixed-income benchmark from general bond indices to pure bond fund indices, fitting the operational characteristic that FOFs primarily invest in fund products. A few FOFs have also added the price return of spot gold contracts as a commodity benchmark component, reflecting a multi-asset allocation product positioning.
QDII bond products have undergone market-oriented benchmark adjustments. Some have replaced the original RMB deposit rate benchmark with overseas bond indices corresponding to their target markets, while others have optimized the composition of overseas bond indices to more accurately represent the risk-return characteristics of cross-border bond investments.
Looking back at the industry-wide benchmark adjustment process, following the official implementation of the Guidelines on March 1 this year, the public fund industry has been advancing the standardization of existing product benchmarks in batches. In the initial phase, 12 fund managers announced benchmark adjustments for 195 public funds on April 30, covering various products such as active equity, active bond, and FOF funds, with the first batch taking effect on June 1.
On June 26, the second batch of fund managers announced benchmark adjustments for their existing products, covering over a thousand public funds. This signified that the benchmark reform had transitioned from a "pilot exploration" phase to a "comprehensive rollout" stage. Based on market performance in recent months, both the first and second batches of benchmark adjustments have been implemented smoothly, with orderly market operations and initial signs of reform effectiveness.
Several public fund professionals have noted that from an industry development perspective, the ongoing benchmark calibration holds multiple layers of deep value. First, it clarifies product positioning and addresses the "blind box" issue in fund investing. The adjusted benchmarks make it clearer what a fund invests in, how it invests, what it compares against, and how it is evaluated, allowing investors to more intuitively understand a product's asset allocation, style bias, and risk-return characteristics, thereby reducing information asymmetry.
Second, it constrains investment behavior and reduces style drift. With the performance benchmark serving as an "anchor," fund managers must pay greater attention to consistency between investment strategy and product positioning, avoiding the pursuit of short-term hotspots or deviation from the contractual investment scope.
Third, it solidifies the foundation for high-quality industry development. Through continuous benchmark calibration, the public fund industry is raising standards to help products return to their essence, investment return to professionalism, and services return to investor interests, advancing toward a new stage of high-quality development.
With the implementation of the third batch of product adjustments, the benchmark reform for public funds has now covered a diverse range of managers of varying sizes and types. It is expected that more institutions will follow suit to complete the calibration of their existing products. Conversely, the standardization of benchmarks will continue to enhance industry transparency and credibility, driving the industry from short-term ranking competition toward long-term value creation and better serving residents' wealth management needs.
Cover image source: Each Media Asset Library