Bond fund is a kind of securities investment fund with bonds as its investment object. It concentrates the funds of many investors, makes portfolio investment in bonds and seeks stable returns.
"The stock market is still unreliable!" Some investors have expressed such feelings in the readers' exchange group of Public Securities News. In fact, a wave of plunge since June this year still leaves many investors with lingering fears. Recently, through many exchanges with investors, the Public Securities Journal and Caixin.com reporter found that more and more high-net-worth people have invested or invested a considerable amount of money in fixed-income products, and bond funds are one of their key directions. During the exchange, the reporter found that some investors are very entangled and confused: Is it a good time to allocate the debt base? In terms of breakdown, what kind of debt-based products should be selected for configuration? What kind of situation is not suitable for investing in debt base?
To this end, the reporter recently interviewed several people who have studied bond funds, and combined with the analysis of data, I hope to provide investment reference for everyone.
First, how to choose debt-based products?
From the category of bond funds, it can be mainly divided into three categories: the first category is pure debt base, which only invests in bonds and does not invest in any stocks and convertible bonds; The second category is ordinary primary debt base, investment bonds and convertible bonds; The third category is the secondary debt base, which can invest in bonds and stocks at the same time.
"What kind of varieties to invest in mainly depends on whether investors themselves are willing to accept rights and interests, that is, investors' risk preferences. If you want to give consideration to both stock and debt base, then you can give priority to secondary debt base; If you are unwilling to take risks, you will mainly rely on the primary debt base; If you are unwilling to bear the risk of convertible bonds, you will mainly rely on pure debt. From pure debt, to ordinary primary debt, to secondary debt base, the risk level is rising step by step. " Ling Chao said.
As we all know, bond funds refer to funds that invest more than 80% of their assets in bonds. Then, in addition to the above-mentioned participation in equity investment, do you still need to pay attention to these 80% bonds?
"Of course." Ling Chao pointed out that the more credit debts, the better the debt base performance. "But now there are many credit default events, and funds with relatively high credit bonds will also cause large fluctuations in the fund's net value once a bond with a heavy position has a credit default event. Through the analysis of the fund's heavy bonds in the quarterly report, we can also know the specific positions of the fund and whether it holds more credit bonds. , so as to choose according to their own risk preferences. "
Second, when is it good to buy a debt base?
Benefiting from the positive impact of macroeconomic environment and bond market funds on the bond market, China Bond's new comprehensive wealth index increased by 2. 1 1% in the third quarter, and the funds mainly invested in the bond market also performed well as a whole. The data shows that excluding convertible bonds, the average net value of bond funds increased by 0.8% in the third quarter, of which the average net value of pure bond funds increased by 2.3%.
So, is it a good time to invest in debt base? "Popular Securities News" and Caixin.com reporter consulted Ling Chao, manager of Haifutong's one-year solid debt fund.
"Generally speaking, under the market environment of poor stock market performance, macroeconomic downturn, state tightening on real estate and continuous downward market interest rate, the bond market will gradually become hot, which is more suitable for investing in debt base," Ling Chao explained. "And if there are other large-scale assets to absorb funds, resulting in the continuous outflow of funds from the bond market, such as hot off-balance sheet wealth management products with high returns and the skyrocketing stock market, the real estate market is often not very hot at this time.
In this way, it may not be difficult to understand why bond funds have continued to be hot since the third quarter. Wind data shows that the debt-based shares of 10 at the end of August, September and June this year were 325.438 billion shares, 433.964 billion shares and 435.403 billion shares respectively, showing a continuous increasing trend, and surged 108526 million shares in September.
A researcher at Desheng Fund Research Center also told reporters that the bond market is worthy of long-term optimism in the macro environment of economic downturn and unchanged downward trend of interest rates. "However, bond investment is different from stocks. On the one hand, the investment threshold is high, on the other hand, the credit analysis of a coupon needs a high degree of professionalism, and it is difficult for individual investors to participate. Therefore, investing in bond funds is a good choice for ordinary investors who don't want to take too much risks and have low yield expectations. "
He further pointed out that the current economic downturn is a good environment for the bond market. However, due to the low interest rate in the overall money market and the marginal diminishing effect of monetary policy relaxation, the expected rate of return on debt base in the future may be slightly lower. "From the historical performance of bond funds, the overall rate of return is basically maintained at 5%-6%."
Third, why is the performance of similar debt bases so different?
In order to introduce you to better debt-based products in the market more intuitively, according to Wind information data, the reporter made statistics on the performance of pure debt funds, ordinary tier-1 debt bases and tier-2 debt bases in different time intervals, and screened out outstanding debt bases with stable and leading performance and open subscription for your investment reference. (See attached table)
During the statistical process, the reporter found that although the bond fund is a low-risk investment product as a whole, it has different performances when implemented in specific funds. On the contrary, the gap is not small.
Take the ordinary primary debt base as an example. Haifutong, which has the best performance in the recent year, has a one-year net growth rate of 55.92%, while the steady growth profit in the west, which ranks last, has also decreased by 1.54%, with a gap of nearly 60%. Why is this?
"This is mainly related to the operation style of the fund manager and the choice of a coupon. Implemented in the fund, it is reflected in the difference in bond allocation structure. " The above-mentioned fund researcher pointed out, "If the fund manager can step on the market rhythm well and control the risk of holding a coupon well, then the debt-based products he manages can often get much higher returns than similar products. This is more obvious in the debt base that participates in equity investment. "
Therefore, he suggested that investors can choose bond funds from three angles: first, look at the overall strength of the company in bond investment, and at the same time, several products rank high, indicating that their investment and research strength in debt base is more prominent, and product performance is naturally more secure; Secondly, it is also an important reference to look at the operating style of fund managers and the historical performance of related funds; Finally, look at the product targets, although they are all debt-based, but the investment targets will be different, such as convertible bonds, credit bonds, interest rate bonds, private debt of SMEs and so on. Different risks lead to different returns.