Incremental funds actively entering the market; new A-share accounts in Shanghai in March increased by over 50% year-on-year

Securities Times reporter Hu Feijun

Since 2026, trading activity in the A-share market has remained active, and investors’ enthusiasm for entering the market has been relatively high. The latest data from the Shanghai Stock Exchange shows that the number of new accounts for A-shares on the Shanghai market in March this year exceeded 4.6 million, up 82.38% month over month and 50.10% year over year. In the first quarter, the cumulative number of new A-share accounts on the Shanghai market reached 12.0402 million, up 61.15% year over year.

Since January, new A-share accounts on the Shanghai market have shown a trend of “strong opening, pullback, and another push higher.” In January, the number of accounts opened was 4.9158 million. In February, affected by fewer trading days due to the Spring Festival holiday, it fell to 2.523 million. In March, it rebounded sharply to 4.6014 million. Judging from the structure of new accounts in March, individual investors opened 4.5882 million accounts and institutional investors opened 0.132 million accounts, with individual investors remaining the main force. In addition, in March, Shanghai’s B-share new accounts were 0.12 million, and fund new accounts were 3.94 million.

In March, the overall A-share market showed a pattern of pushing higher and then pulling back, followed by stabilization and consolidation. Although the benchmark index performed relatively weakly, there were many opportunities driven by market structure. Sectors such as power, pharmaceuticals, computing power, and chemicals rotated and strengthened, to a certain extent boosting incremental capital’s willingness to enter the market.

In the first quarter of this year, the number of new A-share accounts on the Shanghai market increased by more than 60% year over year, directly boosting securities firms’ brokerage businesses. A general manager of a mid-sized securities firm’s Shenzhen branch told Securities Times that in the first quarter the market’s overall trading activity was active, and the firm’s brokerage business achieved a relatively noticeable growth.

A research report from CITIC Securities states that from a long-term perspective, the concentrated increase in new accounts has laid a solid foundation of incremental capital for the A-share market trend and will continue to inject long-term momentum. Dongwu Securities also indicated that benefiting from the month-over-month increase in trading volume and the active capital market, it expects securities firms’ first-quarter performance to continue high growth.

Some securities firms have already released optimistic forecasts. In an updated prospectus, Dongguan Securities disclosed that it expects to achieve operating revenue of RMB 861 million to RMB 952 million in the first quarter of this year, representing growth of 26.62% to 39.95% year over year; attributable net profit of RMB 331 million to RMB 366 million, representing growth of 63.06% to 80.23% year over year. The forecasted profit increase is mainly driven by the significant year-over-year rise in the single-day trading volume of stocks and funds in the first quarter, which is expected to boost both net brokerage fee income and net interest income.