A push by Beijing to pump money into China’s equity market is believed to have helped stimulate a surge in investment with China accounting for almost a third of global exchange traded fund flows in August.
China-focused equity ETFs saw record net inflows of $20.6bn in August, two-and-a-half times the level in July, according to data from BlackRock, dwarfing the $11.1bn pulled in by ETFs focused on US equities. The money that poured in all came from Asia Pacific-listed funds including China, with US and European investors actually pulling money out.
The BlackRock data does not provide a granular view of exactly where in the Apac region the flows originated, but it coincided with the introduction of multiple official measures to stimulate the Chinese stock market. Beijing halved the stamp duty on stock trading last month, while management fees have been cut on more than 70 per cent of actively managed funds, according to data from Wind, after the China Securities Regulatory Commission lowered the maximum fee funds can charge.