To put it simply, the days of “guaranteed returns no matter what” are over. Fund managers now have to be tied to us investors—whether they make money depends entirely on real skills.

Here’s a plain-language breakdown of the six major changes in this round of reform:

1. Fund managers with lousy performance over the past three years, making everyone lose money? Their performance pay gets cut by at least 30%.
2. Assessments now focus on long-term performance—over 80% of evaluation metrics must be based on medium- and long-term indicators (three years or more). Short-term speculation is out.
3. Senior management must use 30% of their annual performance bonuses to buy their own public fund products, with at least 60% in equity funds.
4. Fund managers’ year-end bonuses? At least 40% must be invested in the funds they manage. If they don’t even dare to buy their own products, why should anyone else?
5. When evaluating executives, at least 50% of the assessment weight comes from fund investment returns. Making money is what really matters.
6. For actively managed equity fund managers, at least 80% of performance evaluation must be based on product performance—if returns are bad, nothing else counts.

The core logic of the reform is clear: In the past, fund companies just grew bigger and raked in management fees while fund managers earned high salaries—even if investors lost money (“poor temple, rich abbot” scenario). Now, that path is blocked.

But speaking of “long-term holding”—it’s not that we don’t want to hold quality assets for the long run, but there are two real issues that need to be solved first:

1. Major shareholders of listed companies are always looking for chances to cash out. If we hold long-term while they quietly exit, how do we avoid this trap?
2. Quant funds can make hundreds of trades per second, using high-frequency strategies to take profits from the market. If we invest for the long term at a slow pace, no matter how much capital we have, it’ll get chipped away. How do we break this cycle?