"Her Power" | Bank of China Fund's Yang Yiran: Using Life Insights to Unlock Consumer Opportunities, Navigating Cycles with Long-term Commitment

In traditional understanding, strength is often associated with rigidity and sharpness, but the capital markets are never short of sharpness. Female fund managers are redefining professional strength by combining firmness and flexibility. The current “her power” breaks this binary opposition—firmness means sticking to principles and bottom lines, while flexibility signifies wisdom and guidance. Together, they forge an investment path that balances intensity and warmth, reflected in net value curves and long-term value.

“Always adhering to the absolute return philosophy in investing, with ‘controllable processes and a focus on minimizing drawdowns for defense,’ our core principle is to generate steady and sustainable returns for investors,” summarized Yang Yiran, fund manager of Bank of China Core Driven Fund.

Bank of China Core Driven Fund Manager Yang Yiran

Joining CITIC Securities Research Institute in 2014 and China Asset Management in 2016, Yang Yiran has served as a consumer industry analyst, head of the consumer sector, and manager of both private and public funds. She has experience across absolute return, fixed income+, and active equity products, covering the entire secondary market research and investment chain.

She believes that women possess a unique perspective and experiential insight into life. In consumer investing, especially in emerging sectors, it’s not only necessary to closely track data at high frequency but also to have keen eyes for details in daily life and to discover market-leading opportunities through grassroots research.

Over time, through long-term investment practice, she has independently researched and bottom-up identified individual stocks, proactively positioned before market attention peaks and valuations are low, capturing opportunities with significant medium- and long-term growth potential.

“Today’s consumption has shifted from functional needs to emotional value-driven, with self-pleasure and individuality becoming mainstream. Cultural, technological, and business model innovations are reshaping the consumer industry and opening long-term growth space,” she says. She focuses on uncovering undervalued long-term growth opportunities in emerging tracks like cultural consumption.

Yang Yiran admits that the past two years have been quite challenging for fund managers specializing in consumer sectors.

To keep pace with the market and avoid falling significantly behind in adverse environments, and to demonstrate alpha when opportunities arise in their areas of expertise, the entire market’s fund management faces high demands.

Yang Yiran maintains a continuous learning and iteration cycle, selecting high-growth sectors in technology and cyclical industries, adhering to the principles of performance and valuation alignment; she also deepens stock research within her expertise in consumer sectors, professionally guiding investors through cycles.

Looking ahead to 2026, she is optimistic about the first half of the year for technology and cyclical themes, and in the second half, she will focus on recovery opportunities in consumption, especially in emerging and traditional consumer upgrade sectors. She also emphasizes monitoring the effects of real estate policies and wealth effects, while being cautious of K-shaped divergence risks in the consumer sector.

In her view, AI and quantitative methods are “efficiency multipliers” in research and investment, capable of improving data processing but unable to replace deep insights into business fundamentals and human needs.

She led the development of a new consumer research system covering cultural, future, and service consumption, producing a series of in-depth reports, leading the team to proactively identify quality targets, maintaining team vitality and research combat readiness.

As head of the Consumer and Service Team at Bank of China Fund, Yang Yiran, after identifying the strong and sustained growth potential of emerging consumption, led industry researchers across sectors to conduct in-depth research and stock discovery, designing the “New Consumption, New Service” series of research reports to keep the team dynamic and research competitive.

Message

Investing is the unity of knowledge and action. It allows us to naturally broaden our horizons and mature our minds while pursuing wealth appreciation. This is the true charm that makes it worth dedicating a lifetime.

Written by Xu Nannan, Edited by Xu Nan

(Edited by Xu Nannan)

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