In a low interest rate environment, I have rearranged a ten-year financial plan.

From yield changes back to the cash flow question

Past interest rate experience easily leads me to think of asset allocation as “picking the place with a higher return.” When the low-risk return in my account drops, I start by asking myself: over the next five to ten years, does every sum of money I am certain I will need have its own place; can the money I won’t use for a long time tolerate net value fluctuations; and when fluctuations occur, do I still have a cushion left in the cash I hold.

I set my investment horizon to start at five years, and treat a decade as a planning cycle. This is the timeframe I give myself: it allows different market phases to all have a chance to appear on the books, and it accounts for volatility and recovery periods in my expectations. The horizon itself does not replace risk judgment, nor does it commit to recovering returns by some specific date.

For me, the sequence of fund planning takes precedence over the specific investment choices: first set aside funds for near-term expenses and emergency cash, then establish acceptable position limits for different categories, and only afterward discuss long-term systematic investments. When encountering a major market downturn, whether one can continue to stick to the plan often depends on whether there is still cash on hand that does not need to be liquidated.

I previously wrote an article on funds and fixed-income investments, documenting my experiences with funds and fixed-income products at the time; this old record also serves as a reminder that capital allocation should be re-examined based on my own stage in life and market conditions.

Real-world Constraints of Two Cross-Border Configurations

In the long-term equity portion, I have allocated fund shares that track the corresponding indices of the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500, and participated through small regular investments. When arranging this portion of funds, I encountered situations where the subscription status of QDII funds could not be guaranteed. Therefore, “buy the dip” is not an action that can be executed at any time in my plan.

When the market is at a high level, I am reluctant to invest too much at once for fear of missing out; when a clear pullback actually occurs, the funds previously set aside may not be able to enter due to the subscription status. Market fluctuations and such subscription statuses are not within my control, so I cannot write them into a position-adding plan that is guaranteed to be executable.

Therefore, I only regard the cross-border portion as a limited seat in my long-term plan, pre-constraining the total allocation and the rhythm of regular investments. This arrangement cannot change market valuations or subscription availability, but it prevents treating funds that must remain liquid as though they were freely available for averaging down at any time.

Regarding the CSI 300 portion, I currently hold units of the corresponding index fund, and plan to gradually adjust to a CSI 300 enhanced strategy going forward. The arrangement of my base currency funds can be structured around my own cash flow, systematic investment pace, and reserved funds; if a drawdown occurs in the future, whether to increase investment will still be subject to the position cap determined in advance. This is the logic of my own plan and does not constitute a trading instruction for anyone.

Reviewing History with a Set of Reproducible Standards

My actual dollar-cost averaging (DCA) uses the platform’s smart DCA feature, which buys more in bear markets and less in bull markets. However, I don’t have access to Alipay’s algorithm parameters, nor do I have records of each actual deduction, so the backtest below does not replicate the Alipay smart DCA algorithm, nor does it represent actual account returns.

To make the results verifiable, the backtest uses a more朴素 alternative rule: on the first available net value date of each calendar month, invest an equal amount of 1 cash unit, converting to shares at that day’s unit net value, and value at the end of the period using the last available unit net value.

• Annualized Return: Calculated as annual XIRR based on all monthly invested cash flows and ending account value.
• Maximum Drawdown: Calculated based on the unit net value series over the fully available interval for the fund.
• Drawdown Recovery Time: The calendar days from the net value high point before the maximum drawdown, until the unit net value first recovers to or exceeds that high point.

The NAV comes from the public historical NAV interface of East Money Tiantian Fund, fetched on July 22, 2026, using unit NAV rather than accumulated NAV or daily growth rate. Each fund uses its own full available range, and no long-term data has been truncated to make the comparison look complete.

This article uses unit net value as the data source calibration, without separately simulating account-level fees and frictions, including subscription and redemption fees, taxes, currency conversion costs, actual subscription restrictions, tracking errors, and other trading frictions; this also does not change the boundary that “equal monthly investment is merely a transparent alternative rule, not a reproduction of Alipay’s smart regular investment.”

This article uses unit net value as the data source calibration, without separately simulating account-level fees and frictions, including subscription and redemption fees, taxes, currency conversion costs, actual subscription restrictions, tracking errors, and other trading frictions; this also does not change the boundary that “equal monthly investment is merely a transparent alternative rule, not a reproduction of Alipay’s smart regular investment.”

• 019305 has only 35 natural months of samples, having experienced significantly fewer market phases than the other three funds; its annualized XIRR, maximum drawdown, and recovery time only describe this short sample period. It cannot be compared horizontally with long-term samples, and even less should it be used to infer that future drawdowns will be smaller or recovery will be faster.

I first look at the maximum drawdown and the time it takes to recover. Taking this set of historical samples as an example, 001015’s maximum drawdown started from the peak on June 12, 2015, and it took 1,728 days for the unit net value to reach or exceed that peak again for the first time on March 5, 2020; for 000051, it took 1,857 days. Facing unrepaired unrealized fluctuations for several consecutive years is a scenario that this ten-year plan must accommodate.

Backtesting Didn’t Make the Decision for Me, But It Changed How I Frame the Question

Backtesting transforms my originally vague expectations into several questions that need to be answered in advance.

First, whether the reserved capital is sufficient to cover a repair period longer than expected. Drawdowns are not just weeks-long dips on a line chart—at least in the two CSI 300 samples mentioned above, it took more than four years to recover the previous high. If that portion of money is preset for short-term use, it becomes difficult to stick with the plan.

Second, whether the top-up assumption for cross-border assets depends on a subscription status that cannot be guaranteed. I keep existing positions, their possible fluctuations, and the fund arrangements of other assets within a range I can bear; top-up is merely an option when subscription conditions permit.

Third, whether the drawdown rules for my own principal have clearly defined boundaries. I will first write down the total amount of this portion of funds, how many installments to invest, and to what extent the price drops before I stop adding more; until this is clearly written down, I won’t treat temporary position increases as a rule.

In my experience with low interest rate environments, no single asset can return the past feeling of returns intact. My adjustment is to put bonds back into the stabilizing portion of the portfolio, place equities and cross-border allocations into longer cycles, and incorporate subscription status, cash flow, and drawdowns into the plan altogether.

A five-year starting commitment and a ten-year cycle is the time I’m willing to reserve for this plan. It is not a profit guarantee letter. When the next market fluctuation comes, I hope I won’t have to make a sudden decision about whether to sell off emergency funds, nor will I have to rewrite the entire plan due to changes in the subscription status of QDII funds I encounter.

Data Description

This article conducts backtesting using publicly available historical net value data from East Money Tiantian Fund: 001015 (Huaxia CSI 300 Index Enhanced A), 000051 (Huaxia CSI 300 ETF Linked A), 270042 (GF NASDAQ 100 ETF Linked RMB (QDII) A), 019305 (JPMorgan S&P 500 Index (QDII) RMB C). The net value was fetched on July 22, 2026, and the available data ranges and calculation methods are listed in the table below.

Backtests are calculated solely based on the unit net value from the data source, without separately simulating account-level expenses and frictions, including subscription and redemption fees, taxes, currency conversion costs, actual subscription limits, tracking error, and other trading frictions. Historical data does not represent future performance; the personal capital arrangements mentioned in the article are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute investment, trading, or allocation advice.

References

• Eastmoney Daily Fund Historical NAV API: https://api.fund.eastmoney.com/f10/lsjz (scraped on 2026-07-22; based on unit NAV)
• Eastmoney Fund Pages: https://fund.eastmoney.com/001015.html, https://fund.eastmoney.com/000051.html, https://fund.eastmoney.com/270042.html, https://fund.eastmoney.com/019305.html (verified fund names on 2026-07-22)