After setting a historical high in July, the scale of public mutual funds experienced a slight decline in August, but it still stood firmly above the 30 trillion yuan threshold.

The latest public mutual fund market data released by the China Securities Investment Fund Association shows that by the end of August this year, the total scale of public mutual funds reached 30.90 trillion yuan, a decrease of 58.2961 billion yuan compared to July, with a month-on-month shrinkage of 1.85%.

Different from the growth in the scale of fixed-income products in the previous few months, which drove the scale of public mutual funds to reach new highs repeatedly, bond funds encountered a large-scale redemption in August, with the scale reducing by more than 45 billion yuan in a single month, which was the main factor leading to the shrinkage of the public mutual fund scale in August.

Among the other major types of funds, the scale of closed-end funds and hybrid funds also declined to varying degrees, while the scale of stock funds, money market funds, and QDII funds increased.

Continuing to stand firm at the 30 trillion yuan mark, on September 24, the China Securities Investment Fund Association announced the public mutual fund market data, showing that by the end of August 2024, there were a total of 163 public mutual fund management institutions in China, including 148 fund management companies and 15 asset management institutions with public mutual fund qualifications.

The net value of public mutual fund assets managed by the above institutions totaled 30.90 trillion yuan.

Compared to July, the scale of public mutual funds in August decreased by 58.2961 billion yuan, with a month-on-month decline of 1.85%.

At the end of July, the overall share of public mutual funds reached 29.60 trillion shares, with a month-on-month decline of 1.15%, and the scale decline was higher than the share decline.

Although the scale of public mutual funds shrank in August, looking at the situation from January to August this year, the overall scale of public mutual funds still showed a trend of fluctuating upward, reaching historical highs four times within the year.

Specifically, at the end of February, the scale of public mutual funds reached 29.30 trillion yuan, breaking through the historical high of 28.80 trillion yuan in July last year.

By the end of April, the total scale broke through 30 trillion yuan, setting a new historical high.

Only one month later, in May, the scale of public mutual funds broke through the 31 trillion yuan mark for the first time, creating history again.

At the end of June, although the scale of public mutual funds shrank slightly, it still stood firm at the 31 trillion yuan mark.

At the end of July, the latest scale reached 31.49 trillion yuan, setting a new historical high.

By the end of August, the scale of public mutual funds increased by 3.3 trillion yuan within the year, with a year-on-year growth rate as high as 11.97%.

The scale of bond funds plummeted in August.

Previously, driven by the bull market in bonds, the scale of bond funds continued to soar, becoming the biggest driving force for the growth of public mutual fund scale within the year, driving the scale of public mutual funds to reach new highs repeatedly.

In August, this situation reversed, with bond funds becoming the type of fund with the largest scale reduction among the major types, dragging the scale of public mutual funds back below 31 trillion yuan.

Data shows that by the end of July, the share of bond funds reached 5.79 trillion shares, with a month-on-month decline of 6.22%; the latest net value scale was 6.55 trillion yuan, with a single-month reduction of 45.3188 billion yuan, a month-on-month decline of 6.47%, setting the largest reduction amount since December 2022.

Many industry insiders have said that the reduction in the scale of bond funds in August is related to multiple factors.

Puyi Standard Analysis pointed out that in August, the bond market experienced a correction, especially from August 5th to August 12th, when the bond maturity yield rose sharply, with the maturity yield of Treasury bonds and AAA-level commercial bank ordinary bonds in various main maturity categories rising by about 13 basis points (BP).

On the regulatory side, at the beginning of August, in order to reduce the potential risks accumulated by the continuous rise of the bond market in the previous period, the central bank began to guide large banks to sell long-term Treasury bonds, with a net sale scale as high as 20.1 billion yuan.

The Association of Trading Companies issued announcements on two consecutive days, rectifying the suspected manipulation of market prices, interest transfer, and lending of bond accounts in the secondary market transactions of Treasury bonds by banks and other financial institutions.

"Affected by this, the bond market experienced an unconventional rebound, and some institutions were also unwilling to go against the central bank and chose to sell bond funds," said a fixed-income person from a fund company.

In addition, many industry insiders have said that on August 15th, there was news in the market that some provinces required public mutual funds to be included in the SPV supervision, and some urban and rural commercial banks' SPV + public mutual fund investment scale could not exceed 2.5% of the total asset scale, with quarterly monitoring; while the relevant investment restrictions for joint-stock banks were 5%.

Although the regulatory side stated that the relevant rumors were not true, some bank proprietary departments still redeemed some funds at that time.

The first to be redeemed was the institutionally customized pure bond funds, which were subject to varying degrees of redemption in August.

Among other types of funds, bottom-fishing funds entered through ETFs, driving the scale of stock funds to increase by 7.448 billion yuan in August, with a month-on-month increase of 0.23%, and the latest scale reached 3.29 trillion yuan.

The scale of QDII funds increased by 5.433 billion yuan, reaching 52.9106 billion yuan, with a month-on-month increase of 1.04%.

The scale of closed-end funds and hybrid funds continued to shrink slightly in August, with the scale declining by 0.14% and 4.36% month-on-month, respectively.