CITIC Securities fixed income chief analyst Zeng Yu: 2026 may be the year when interest rates hit the bottom of a long cycle.

On January 16, the "2026 Bond Market Annual Forum" hosted by the National Financial and Development Laboratory of the First Entrepreneurship and organized by the Shenzhen First Entrepreneurship Bond Research Institute was held in Beijing. Zeng Yu, Chief Analyst of Fixed Income at CITIC Securities, believes that the long-term interest rates are expected to continue fluctuating at the bottom. If housing prices stabilize in the next two years, the macro economy is expected to spontaneously recover, combined with the ongoing push against "internal competition," leading to a gradual increase in interest rates. She believes that in a market characterized by fluctuations and a slow upward trend in yields, it is not advisable to bet on single-sided duration strategies. Instead, she suggests focusing on income strategies, using short-duration credit bonds as the core position, moderate interest rate hedging through leverage strategies, supplementing with more flexible long-end volatility operations to increase returns, and actively positioning in "fixed-income+".