Equity products experience a major surge; public funds are projected to earn over 2.6 trillion yuan in profits by 2025.

◎ Reporter Chen Yue

In 2025, backed by strong performance in equity assets, mutual funds saw a sharp increase in full-year investment returns, turning in an impressive annual “scorecard.”

Leading companies with a high proportion of equity business benefited significantly. Driven by a structural market, investment returns of fund products were also divided according to style and theme, showing a pattern of divergence.

According to data from Tianxiang Investment Advisory, in 2025, mutual funds collectively achieved investment returns of more than 2.6 trillion yuan. Of this, the combined investment returns of stock funds and hybrid funds were close to 2 trillion yuan—an indisputable “profit champion.” In addition to equity funds, bond funds, money market funds, QDII (overseas investment) funds, commodity funds, FOF (fund of funds), and other fund types all delivered positive returns.

Judging from mutual funds’ overall profitability for the full year, the “equities strong, bonds weak” characteristic was clearly evident.

Equity-type funds performed exceptionally well. Among them, stock funds earned about 1.1254 trillion yuan, hybrid funds earned 26k yuan, and their combined investment return totaled 199.88 billion yuan, accounting for more than 75% of mutual funds’ total investment returns.

Fixed-income assets remained steady as well. Bond funds posted profits of 20k yuan, while money market funds earned 11.25k yuan. QDII products performed relatively well, with total profits of 873.34B yuan in 2025.

In addition, commodity funds also delivered profits exceeding 100 billion yuan, totaling 2T yuan; FOF products recorded a modest profit of 184.15B yuan, a significant improvement compared with 2024.

In 2025, the vast majority of fund companies achieved positive investment returns, with only 4 companies recording investment losses; 39 companies posted investment returns exceeding 112.56B yuan, and leading firms with a dominant share of equity assets firmly held positions near the top of the rankings.

Specifically, based on the ranking of investment returns of products under fund companies, E Fund and Huaxia Fund took the top two spots. Their full-year investment returns were 103.79B yuan and 18.68B yuan, respectively. Closely following were Southern Fund, GF Fund, Harvest Fund, Huatai-PineBridge Fund, and Fullgoal Fund, with full-year investment returns all exceeding 100 billion yuan. An even lower tier still exceeded 50 billion yuan: Huaan Fund, Bosera Fund, 添富基金 (Eastspring/FT), 中欧基金 (China Europe Fund), Guotai Fund, Invesco Great Wall Fund, and Penghua Fund. The top-heaviness effect of mutual funds further intensified.

All four fund companies with investment losses were small companies, with losses ranging from 12.06 million yuan to 135 million yuan.

In the 2025 fund product profitability rankings, many of the top performers were broad-market index ETFs, in stark contrast to industry-theme index funds concentrated toward the bottom of the list. Moreover, affected by the structural market, fund products’ investment returns were also broken down by style and theme, showing an even greater divergence.

According to Tongyuan data, among the top 10 products by investment return, all were broad-market ETFs except the Huiaan Gold ETF. Specifically, the Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF ranked first with investment returns of 327.01B yuan. The E Fund CSI 300 ETF (initiated), the Huaxia CSI 300 ETF, and the E Fund ChiNext ETF followed with investment returns of 258.75B yuan, 78.52B yuan, and 55.99B yuan, respectively. The Southern CSI 500 ETF and Harvest CSI 300 ETF both saw investment returns exceeding 30 billion yuan. The Huaxia SSE STAR 50 Index ETF, the Huaxia SSE 50 ETF, the Huiaan Gold ETF, and the E Fund SSE STAR 50 ETF all recorded investment returns exceeding 22 billion yuan.

The characteristics of the structural market were also reflected in product profitability. Specifically, among the top 10 loss-makers, passive products accounted for more than half, mainly industry-theme products such as liquor, innovative drugs, and consumer sectors. The largest loss was in the China Merchants CSI Liquor Index A, with losses exceeding 4 billion yuan; in addition, 5 other products had losses exceeding 1 billion yuan.

Profitability of various mutual fund products in 2025

Fund type 2025 profit
(billion yuan)

Stock funds 11.25k.95
Hybrid funds 8733.38
Bond funds 1865.25
Money market funds 1841.47
QDII 1125.64
Commodity funds 1037.94
FOF 186.85
Other 20.81
Total 26066.29

Data source: Tianxiang Investment Advisory; cutoff date: December 31, 2025

(Editor: Wen Jing)

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