China's $3.7 Trillion Wealth Industry Is Plagued by Sub-3% Returns

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Which companies may blow up and which stock indexes will nosedive? Most investors are not distressed-debt specialists and are not keen to find out. As China undergoes a structural economic transition that may last decades, low-risk investments that yield 3% are becoming rare. It's disorienting for a nation of savers who could easily get that rate from plain-vanilla bank deposits just a decade earlier. Banks have been lowering performance benchmarks for new wealth management products. In March, big state-owned institutions were on average guiding 2.9% for their offerings, down from 3.3% at the onset of 2023. One…