Editor's note: Accelerating the development of new quality productive forces is an inevitable requirement and due meaning for achieving high-quality economic and social development on the mainland. As an important bridge connecting 30 trillion yuan of long-term capital and the real economy, what positive role can the insurance asset management industry play in helping the development of new productive forces? And what are the practices? Securities Times and the Insurance Asset Management Association of China jointly launched a series of columns on "Insurance Asset Management Industry Helps the Development of New Quality Productivity", interviewing the helmsmen of large insurance asset management institutions and asking them to answer in depth.
▲ Duan Guosheng, CEO of Taikang Assets
At present, the mainland has entered a new stage of development, and profound changes have taken place in the internal and external environment. How to actively promote and accelerate the development of new quality productivity in combination with its own development orientation has become a question that needs to be answered urgently by insurance asset management institutions.
"Insurance asset management institutions need to have a deep understanding of the current profound transformation of social and economic development and the characteristics of industries related to new quality productivity, optimize the meso research system, open up the total volume, meso research and micro subject research, open up the vertical industrial chain research and horizontal industry comparative research, rely on digitalization to help upgrade the investment and research system, and take the initiative to adjust the research model and investment research system upgrade to create new quality investment power." Recently, Duan Guosheng, Executive Vice President, Chief Investment Officer and CEO of Taikang Insurance Group and CEO of Taikang Assets, said bluntly in an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Securities Times.
The economic development has been further transformed, and the capital market has taken on new characteristics
Since the reform and opening up, the mainland's economic growth has been characterized by globalization, industrialization, and urbanization, which has promoted the rapid development of asset-heavy and cyclical industries, and formed a debt financing system with banks as the core. At present, in the wave of accelerating the development of new quality productive forces, the new generation of information technology industry, new energy industry, new material industry and other industries are booming, and it is urgent to develop equity financing and various innovative forms of direct financing in line with the characteristics of emerging industries.
Duan Guosheng said that the transformation of the economic development model drives the transformation of the financing model, and the transformation of the financing model will inevitably require the investment model to change in a timely manner.
In terms of fixed-income investment, the era of the peak of mainland debt financing has passed, and long-term allocation institutions must take innovation as the starting point, and actively explore the mining of existing assets and investment in asset securitization varieties, the investment in operational assets that meet the requirements of new productivity, structural transformation and high-quality development, and innovative strategic investment models. In terms of equity investment, the performance of the old and new economies in the economic transition period is differentiated, the trend is obviously divergent, the structural characteristics of the market will be interpreted for a long time, and the "winner and loser" of investment has changed from more of a total position to a choice of "track".
Upgrade the investment and research system and grasp investment opportunities
Duan Guosheng believes that emerging growth industries are full of investment opportunities, and at the same time, investment is significantly more difficult. First, the high valuation of emerging growth industries implies high growth expectations and assumptions, and it is necessary to pay attention to the subsequent verification of the expectations and assumptions of the invested industries and companies. Second, the first-mover advantage of growth industries is not a stable "moat", and the early industry leaders may be subverted by latecomers due to the evolution of technology paths; Third, emerging industries have experienced from scratch, and there are often great uncertainties in their development policies and market environment.
"Therefore, seizing the investment opportunities of new productivity needs to change with the times. Aggregate research still plays an important role as a 'syllabus', and the research framework needs to be optimized and upgraded, especially the construction of a systematic meso research system based on solid micro research. He said.
Duan Guosheng further explained that the traditional meso-research takes the industry as the main research object, and there are certain shortcomings. Taking the new energy vehicle industry chain as an example, its core links include the smelting of energy metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel in the upstream, the production of battery cathode, anode materials and power batteries in the midstream, and the downstream includes new energy vehicles and related freight, logistics and other service links. If the cycle researchers, power equipment researchers, and automobile transportation researchers only conduct partial tracking research on the new energy vehicle industry chain, it is inevitable that blind people will not be able to fully grasp the overall development trend of the new energy vehicle industry, and it will be difficult to grasp the structural theme investment opportunities brought about by the mismatch between supply and demand within the industrial chain.
"As a long-term fund manager, the construction of the meso-research system of insurance asset management institutions should place more emphasis on the medium and long-term 'industry prospect' judgment as the core." Duan Guosheng said that the construction of the meso-research system needs to enrich the understanding of the development prospects, laws and medium- and long-term trends of the fields related to new quality productivity. It is necessary to gain insight from different dimensions such as top-down, bottom-up, upstream, upstream, midstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and horizontal comparison of industries; It is necessary to make full use of the cognitive advantages of industrial capital and industry leaders, and build a cognitive "moat" through in-depth exchanges and discussions with external experts and corporate executives, so as to grasp the investment opportunities in the process of economic transformation and upgrading.
He emphasized that the key to the construction of the meso-research system lies in the word "open up". First, it is necessary to open up the total amount, meso research and micro subject research. In-depth research on individual stocks and securities is the "foundation" of the investment research system, and it is also an important basic source of excess returns. Second, it is necessary to open up vertical industrial chain research and horizontal industry comparative research, and strengthen cross-validation and horizontal comparison, so as to make up for the lack of support for investment decision-making by pure industry research.
Relying on digital empowerment, we will build new quality investment capabilities
In addition to grasping the investment opportunities brought about by new quality productivity, insurance asset management institutions should also actively embrace and apply new quality productivity, rely on digitalization to upgrade and iterate the investment and research system, and continuously build new quality investment capabilities.
With the construction of the investment and research system sinking from the total volume to the meso and micro level, the digital platform can play a greater role. Duan Guosheng said that unlike aggregate research, the data in the process of mesoscopic and micro research has a low degree of standardization, relatively scattered sources, and is difficult to collect, and there is often a lack of ready-made external information databases that can meet the needs of investment research. In the process of building a meso-research system, it is necessary to establish and gradually improve the industry's characteristic data and the corresponding data analysis and tracking system for key industrial chains and industries. Through the establishment of a high-quality data tracking system, we can better grasp the development trend of the industry, capture the changes in the industrial prosperity in a timely manner, and also facilitate cross-link, cross-industry and cross-plate data sharing.
Through the construction of the digital platform, a complete set of data standards and mapping mechanisms can be established under the framework of total, meso, and micro research, which can realize the organic connection of total, meso, and micro, so that the total data can be dismantled into industries and individual stocks, and the information of individual stocks and industries can also be summarized to form a total amount. By opening up the "total, medium and micro", it is not only helpful to grasp the impact of aggregate-level information on industries and individual stocks, but also to analyze the impact of major events at the individual stocks and industry level on the market in a more timely manner, so as to provide more timely and detailed bottom-up data and views for aggregate analysis.
Editor-in-charge: Tactical Heng
Proofreader: Tang Haocheng