Bloomberg estimates indicate that Huijin Investment, a subsidiary of the CIC sovereign wealth fund, which is part of the group used by Beijing to intervene in the markets, sold the equivalent of around $67.5 billion (€57 billion) in holdings in 14 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in just six sessions up to last Thursday.
Although China does not have an official stabilization fund, the “national team,” as it is called, has played that role since 2015, when Beijing ordered Huijin Investment and other state investment bodies to bail out the markets in the face of a slump that ultimately amounted to around $5 trillion (€4.2 trillion).
The authorities resorted to this formula again in 2023, after hitting five-year lows.
In August 2025, after an aggressive investment campaign, Central Huijin had around $180 billion (€151 billion) in ETFs, leading some analysts to now point out that the scale of the sell-off “points to a proactive effort to facilitate a price correction in overheated sectors.”
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The sales may aim to drain the “speculative excesses” of certain areas of the technology sector, such as artificial intelligence applications, which have skyrocketed in recent months, despite still offering no guarantees of profitability.
Despite this apparent specific intention, experts and managers point out that the change of course could “alter expectations” in the markets in general and believe that the strategy should now focus on stocks where the weight of the “national team” investment is lower, to avoid the impact of sales.
Other investors believe that the withdrawal of state support is “a step towards promoting a gradual bull market,” meaning that the authorities do not intend to end the positive trend in the markets, but rather to ensure that the pace of rises is not excessive.
The fact that the volatility of the CSI 300, the index that measures the valuation of the top 300 stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, has been at its lowest since May is seen by industry sources as a demonstration of strong institutional demand for mainland Chinese stocks.
Furthermore, according to Zhu Zhenxin of Asymptote Investment Research, “selling now will free up [investment] positions so that [members of the ‘national team’] can provide a boost at another moment of risk in the future,” thus avoiding a bubble—and its consequent burst—like the one in 2015.
