In an increasingly volatile market environment, 'fixed income+' is becoming the core choice for more and more investors due to its relative stability and flexibility.
As the deputy general manager of Yinhua Fund and head of the multi-asset team, Yu Lei, with over 20 years of experience in enterprise annuity investment, uses a long-term methodology of 'asset allocation + pursuit of steady appreciation' to create more certain long-term return solutions for investors.
The '2024 Annual National Enterprise Annuity Fund Business Data Summary' published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security shows that in 2024, the weighted average return of the equity-inclusive single plan of Yinhua Fund ranks 4th among annuity managers, demonstrating the long-term effectiveness and replicability of its investment framework.
1. Starting from pension investment: balancing stable returns and risk management.
Yu Lei joined Yin Hua Fund in 2024 and currently serves as the company's deputy general manager while also being the director of pension and multi-asset investment management department and FOF investment management department. She has been deeply engaged in pension investment for more than twenty years.
Pension funds have significant long-term attributes, requiring stable returns while being sensitive to volatility and drawdowns.
For pensions, the actual management process often faces stringent dual assessments: on the one hand, being responsible for absolute returns, and on the other hand, comparing relative rankings with the entire market. Therefore, investment managers must pay attention to both asset allocation and industry selection, while striving to ensure the overall safety of the portfolio.
After experiencing multiple rounds of cyclical fluctuations in over twenty years of pension investment, Yu Lei has gradually formed a stable and clear investment philosophy: to pursue long-term maximum returns while strictly controlling drawdowns.
Regarding long-termism, Yu Lei emphasizes that excellent investments must be oriented towards long-term results. Short-term sentiment or style should not dominate; assets must be assessed in terms of their value over a two to three-year horizon. She often reminds her team: 'The value of an investment manager is to strive to create long-term stable investment performance for investors, not to chase short-term hot spots.'
She repeatedly emphasizes the importance of controlling drawdowns. In her view, the same full-cycle returns may appear similar, but if there are severe fluctuations in between, the investment experience for investors may be completely different, even leading to losses. Therefore, her investment discipline is very clear: any decision must be made within the range of controllable drawdowns, and each product must have a clear drawdown bottom line.
She recalls that based on past management experiences through multiple cycles, net value fluctuations have a much greater impact on investor behavior than performance itself. Many ordinary investors in the market generally lack asset allocation capabilities, often 'buying at highs and selling at lows.'
'The 'fixed income +' approach can help investors avoid emotional decision-making, striving to maintain a stable structure in the portfolio amid fluctuations, and is indeed one of the preferred options for ordinary investors in asset allocation.'
After joining Yin Hua Fund, Yu Lei completely transferred a stable and replicable methodology she developed from over twenty years of pension management experience into the 'fixed income +' system.
1. Prioritize portfolio perspective, enhance stability through cross-asset collaboration.
Unlike many fund managers who favor equity styles, Yu Lei always emphasizes a 'portfolio perspective.'
'Doing 'fixed income +' cannot just see the trees but miss the forest.' she stated. Many traditional equity investments are driven by an 'industry perspective,' where investment managers often start from the industry or company, focusing on a few tracks for a long time, making it difficult to break out of the industry framework. However, in 'fixed income +', one must start from the overall portfolio, first construct the risk structure of the assets, and then enter the selection of industries and individual stocks.
First, build a lower limit with controllable drawdowns, and then gradually add growth assets within the risk budget, allowing the portfolio to possess three major components: safety cushion, elasticity, and structural allocation.
She believes that an outstanding 'fixed income +' portfolio's core lies not in a single asset class or industry but in striving to maintain the optimal structure of the portfolio through dynamic allocation across assets, industries, and cycles in a fluctuating environment.
In actual operations, she not only compares the valuations and return expectations of different asset classes but also calculates the marginal contribution of different assets to portfolio volatility, assessing the controllability of drawdowns after bearing risks. 'During the market's pessimistic moments in July-August 2024, we steadfastly turned our attention to the equity market, and after the market rebound in early October, we timely reduced our focus on equity assets and shifted to convertible bonds that had yet to start recovery; in September of this year, we shifted our focus back to the bond market.'
This cross-asset dynamic collaboration aims to ensure that the portfolio has 'breathing capacity' in different cycles, adapting to market upswings while also being able to traverse downturns.
2. Grasp the main contradictions in the market, with cost-effectiveness comparison running through asset allocation.
Specifically in asset allocation, Yu Lei views the main contradictions in the market as the directional anchor for asset allocation. When the market's main line is clear, one must act in accordance with it.
She believes that each year has a core variable that dominates the market, and asset allocation should align with this core variable.
For example, the main contradiction in 2025 is liquidity and valuation expansion. Even if technology and innovative drug directions that align with the main theme see valuation increases, they still require close attention. 'Aligning with the main contradiction is a form of 'rationality in accordance with the trend,' and it is necessary to keep in sync with the market.' she said.
'Cost-effectiveness comparison' is another core concept in her asset allocation decision-making.
She emphasizes that stocks are not absolutely good or bad; the key lies in matching price with expectations.
She never uses traditional standards of 'low valuation' or 'high valuation' as judgment criteria but measures how different assets can provide risk-adjusted returns in the next one to three years under the same risk budget, comparing them using a more comprehensive 'cost-effectiveness' framework.
By comparing valuation levels, congestion, extreme sentiment, changes in prosperity direction, and potential drawdown costs, a cost-effectiveness ranking is conducted. She emphasizes: 'All assets can be substituted as long as the cost-effectiveness changes, and allocations should be adjusted accordingly.'
'Cost-effectiveness comparison' injects contrarian thinking into her asset allocation framework. She believes that investment cannot just follow the trend, but must unify both following and contrarian approaches, and also contrarian at the right time.
When extreme differences in cost-effectiveness occur, and sentiment and congestion reach a turning point, rational contrarian adjustments should be made based on the risk-return ratio, using market fluctuations to strive for enhanced portfolio returns.
In the past, she has often gone against the tide during the worst market sentiment and has also left the market early during the most crowded times. These rational decisions were made under the joint effect of the main contradiction framework and the cost-effectiveness system.
Of course, Yu Lei's contrarian approach is predicated on establishing a sufficient safety cushion.
3. Establish a safety cushion, focusing on risk budget management.
When discussing the concept of a 'safety cushion,' Yu Lei stated that risk budget is the bottom line of all asset allocation. Without a safety cushion, high risks should never be recklessly assumed, nor should the portfolio be exposed to uncontrollable drawdowns in pursuit of short-term elasticity.
For example, some tech assets have high volatility in the A-share market, so she turns her attention to the Hang Seng Technology Index, striving to reduce volatility without lowering thematic exposure.
She consistently builds portfolios in the fixed order of 'safety cushion—elasticity—structural allocation': first ensuring the lower limit of net value, then gradually increasing growth assets; only after the first two are stable, she will use a small amount of structural assets to strive for yield enhancement.
As of September 30, Yu Lei's flagship product in the fixed income + category, Yin Hua Sheng Hong Bond A, has seen a net value growth of 6.81% since she took over management on February 18 of this year, compared to a benchmark performance of 1.28%, achieving an excess return of 5.53%. (Fund performance data is sourced from custodial bank verification data; the benchmark performance data for the same period is sourced from Wind, statistical period: 2025.02.18-2025.9.30)
Overall, Yu Lei's asset allocation philosophy is a highly systematized, structured methodology that has been validated over the long term.
Its core lies in starting from the portfolio, with cost-effectiveness as the main line, the main contradiction as the direction, and risk budget as the bottom line, striving to maintain stability in the portfolio amid market fluctuations through dynamic adjustments across assets, industries, and cycles.
As Yu Lei said, an excellent 'fixed income +' portfolio is not judged by whether it outperforms the market in a single phase, but by whether it can provide a sustainable, predictable, and replicable investment experience over the long term.
2. Yin Hua's multi-asset team: Platform power leads investments towards sustainability.
'Yin Hua 'fixed income +' is not a brand of one person, but a platform ecosystem's solution capability. The decision-making in asset allocation is a consensus of the team, not my personal judgment.' When discussing the investment system, Yu Lei emphasized this multiple times.
Unlike many investment systems that rely on the personal abilities of fund managers, Yin Hua 'fixed income +' emphasizes a platform ecosystem. Currently, the multi-asset team consists of about fifty people, covering various roles across bonds, equities, asset allocation, overseas investments, quantitative analysis, and FOF.
The fixed income team consists of about twenty people, long-term focusing on corporate annuity and other businesses; the equity team is composed of more than ten members with complementary styles, covering balanced, growth, and value styles, sharing the company's research results in long-term strategic industries such as technology, high-end manufacturing, consumption, and pharmaceuticals; the asset allocation team handles cross-asset decision-making, providing a global perspective and risk diversification capabilities.
In this way, it ensures that the offensive part of the portfolio has enough 'weapons' available while also effectively ensuring defense, and fully exploiting various asset investment opportunities through asset allocation.
Yu Lei emphasizes that the investment team has a 'collaborative culture', forming a virtuous cycle of two-way flow of research information and collaborative optimization of investment strategies.
In this system, there are no isolated researchers, nor are there investment managers responsible for only a single asset class. Every investment judgment and every industry choice goes through cross-team discussions and multi-dimensional validations.
Based on detailed data, valuation models, and profit forecasts, a preliminary judgment on major asset classes is constructed, which is then thoroughly discussed by team members and industry experts from their respective professional perspectives, ultimately converging the dispersed views into a clear consensus. She refers to this as 'stirring the information together to let the truly valuable signals surface.'
To capture this 'implicit consensus' more quickly and clearly, Yin Hua's multi-asset team has leveraged the potential of AI technologies such as LLM and Agent to build a middle-platform system based on large language models, integrating intelligent tools into all aspects of research and investment.
In traditional research systems, some valuable insights are often scattered in researchers' notes and discussion details. However, in the smart middle platform, meeting minutes, research notes, and strategy discussions are automatically extracted and aggregated, then fed back to the asset allocation team, making it easier for them to judge which views are merely incidental and which are forming a 'consensus', allowing the team to reach directional judgments more quickly in a complex information environment.
For example, when the team observed rapid increases in the innovative drug sector and rising congestion in mid-2025, different team members mentioned the same signal in different meetings and industry frameworks—cost-effectiveness in the tech sector was rising.
This judgment is not a conclusion made 'off the cuff' by a certain industry investment manager, but rather an opinion that repeatedly appeared among multiple researchers in different meeting scenarios.
Ultimately, the judgment of 'technology stagnation, crowded innovative drugs' was identified by the asset allocation team as a 'repeated collective signal,' thus facilitating structural switching. The industry choices made at that time were fully validated in subsequent market trends.
'This system allows us to see each other's consensus more quickly and also see those overlooked risks more quickly,' she said.
This team-based, systematic investment structure ultimately allows the 'fixed income +' portfolio to no longer rely on a single individual's 'heroic judgment', but rather on the overall understanding of the market, industry, and assets by the entire team. As Yu Lei said, 'Choosing Yin Hua's 'fixed income + ' is not choosing a single investment manager, but selecting the entire research platform.'
3. Construct a product system oriented towards investor needs, focusing on 'stability first, progress later'.
Yu Lei believes that a mature 'fixed income +' system must be able to cover investors with different risk preferences and allocation needs, so products should not be homogenized but should show a gradient design from low volatility to medium-high volatility.
Based on this logic, Yin Hua has gradually constructed a three-tier product series for its 'fixed income +' product system according to different risk exposures.
Among them, low-volatility products prioritize drawdown control and may be suitable for conservative investors; medium-volatility products pursue steady appreciation based on safety margins; medium-high volatility products capture medium to long-term growth by assuming moderate risks.
Yu Lei emphasizes that these three types of products are not isolated but are a hierarchical system constructed around risk budgets and portfolio experiences. In her view, a truly mature 'fixed income +' system should allow investors to freely choose levels based on their risk preferences and should also allow investors to switch to appropriate product lines at different stages of the market.
On this basis, she is also preparing a new medium-volatility product—Yin Hua Sheng An six-month hold mixed fund, to provide investors with another long-term holding 'fixed income +' option.
4. New product preview: Yu Lei launches a brand new 'fixed income +' product.
It is reported that Yin Hua Sheng An six-month hold mixed fund will be issued starting December 1, positioned as a medium-volatility 'fixed income +' product, focusing on balancing aggressiveness and safety, striving to control net value fluctuations through reasonable allocations between equities and bonds, and pursuing steady growth in net value.
This product will continue the investment style of 'long-termism, balanced allocation, and controllable drawdowns', initially building a 'safety cushion' with controllable drawdown assets, and then gradually increasing growth-oriented allocations based on cost-effectiveness, striving for excess returns within stability.
Specifically, in terms of pure bonds, credit risk will be strictly controlled, and phase capital gains will be actively captured through mid-to-high-grade transactions to pursue excess returns. In terms of stocks, high-growth sub-sectors and companies with significant competitive barriers will be selected to maximize long-term returns; market fluctuations will be used for moderate contrarian investments to strive for enhanced performance.
'New products will not sacrifice stability for short-term performance; I care more about long-term replicability.' Yu Lei hopes that Yin Hua Sheng An's six-month hold mixed fund can become a product 'that investors can hold for the long term,' allowing investors not to rely on timing or frequently adjust their positions but rather to strive for a stable long-term experience through a well-structured, rhythmic portfolio.
Looking ahead, Yu Lei expresses optimism about the equity market over the next two years. She believes that price stabilization and real estate stabilization are important variables in the market fundamentals for the next two years, paying attention to the timing of the emergence of turning points, when the A-share market may usher in investment opportunities from improved fundamentals.
It is important to maintain an open mindset; technological innovation remains a long-term investment direction. Attention can be paid to leading indicators of consumer recovery, such as aviation, hotels, and tourism, and structural opportunities should be laid out in advance.
Conclusion: Leave professionalism to professionals, allowing long-termism to become the answer.
In the context of the 'fixed income +' era, the multi-asset team led by Yu Lei, with its platform-based allocation capabilities, collaborative culture, large model middle platform, and long-term stable investment methodology, has built a mature 'fixed income +' solution for investors.
Looking ahead, she hopes that through Yin Hua's platform-based and multi-dimensional collaborative capabilities, more investors can participate in long-term investments in a more relaxed manner.
With the launch of Yin Hua Sheng An's six-month hold mixed fund, the Yin Hua 'fixed income +' system will also move towards a more mature stage, further meeting investors' diverse allocation needs.
$Yin Hua Sheng An six-month hold mixed A(F025993)$ $Yin Hua Sheng An six-month hold mixed C(F025994)$
Yu Lei’s resume: Master's degree. Previously worked at China Life Asset Management Co., Ltd. and China Life Pension Insurance Co., Ltd. Joined Yin Hua Fund Management Co., Ltd. in April 2024. Currently serves as Deputy General Manager/Director/Investment Manager (Annuity, Pension)/Fund Manager. Currently managing the following funds: Yin Hua Sheng Hong Bond A/C (since 2025.2.18), Yin Hua Yu Xiang Bond A/C/E (since 2025.8.21).
Yu Lei currently manages the following fund performance: Yin Hua Sheng Hong Bond A was established on April 26, 2024, with a net value growth rate of 9.94% since the fund contract came into effect, compared to a benchmark return rate of 6.74%. Yin Hua Sheng Hong Bond C was established on April 26, 2024, with a net value growth rate of 9.49% since the fund contract came into effect, compared to a benchmark return rate of 6.74%. Yin Hua Yu Xiang Bond A was established on May 15, 2024, with a net value growth rate of 3.95% since the fund contract came into effect, compared to a benchmark return rate of 4.73%. Yin Hua Yu Xiang Bond C was established on May 15, 2024, with a net value growth rate of 3.53% since the fund contract came into effect, compared to a benchmark return rate of 4.73%. (The above data is sourced from the fund's periodic report as of 2025.9.30)
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1. Based on the different types of investment objects, funds are divided into stock funds, mixed funds, bond funds, money market funds, fund-of-funds, commodity funds, and other types. Investing in different types of funds will yield different return expectations and will also involve varying degrees of risk. Generally speaking, the higher the expected return of the fund, the greater the risk you will bear.
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