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Patricia Oey, an ETF analyst at Morningstar, recently compiled the funds with the highest net cash inflows and outflows for April. Oey states that, “Investors poured another $12.2 billion into exchange-traded funds in April 2010, bringing total year-to-date net inflows to $19.9 billion. Flows were Read more…
DIA, EFA, FXI, GLD, IVV, MDY, QQQ, QQQQ, SHY, SLV, SPY, TBT, TIP, UUP, VB, VWO, VXZ, XLK, XLP, XLV
“The healthcare sector has never seen anything like this and neither has the American public. After months of political wrangling, the Affordable Health Care for America Act was signed into law by Read more…
“Wall street was glued to the weekend vote on health-care reform and scrambled to figure out which areas, if any, might benefit from its passage. Technically, however, the fortunes of the sector relative Read more…
“Less than halfway through the session, the (XLV) health care exchange-traded fund is seeing call volume that is 11 times its total daily average. The Heathcare SPDR Fund has averaged total option Read more…
“Shares of the Health Care Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLV) have come a long way since their March 2009 bear market lows at $21.63 a share. But (XLV) will soon run into a strong headwind Read more…
(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Health Care Select Sector SPDR® Fund (NYSE: XLV), announced today that the Fund received a payment as an authorized claimant from a class action settlement related to Cardinal Health Read more…
Scott Burns, director of ETF analysis with Morningstar, released a video that looks at long and short ways to use health-care ETFs ahead of major reforms. Scott looks into the composition of a few of the broad health care sector ETFs and finds that they have about a 2/3 stake in pharmaceuticals. Read more…
…Traditionally, health care has been viewed as a defensive sector, meaning that health care sector stocks have held up better than the overall stock market during major bear markets. The current bear market is no exception. Regardless of what the market is doing, people tend to maintain their health care spending, and profits in the sector hold. Because senior citizens account for a disproportionate share of health care expenses, Medicare guarantees a flow of revenue to the health care industry.
There are literally dozens of health care ETFs, and not all are created equal. The first group to be aware of is the broad U.S. health care sector ETFs: Health Care Sector SPDR (XLV) from State Street Global Advisors of Boston, iShares Dow Jones U.S. Healthcare Sector Index ETF (IYH) from Barclays Global Fund Advisors in San Francisco, a subsidiary of Barclays Global Investors of Jersey City, N.J., and the Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT) from The Vanguard Group Inc. of Malvern, Pa.
The investment performance of these ETFs has been similar over the past three and five years, with the Health Care Sector SPDR just a bit weaker than the others. On the other hand, the Health Care SPDR is the most heavily traded of the three broad health care ETFs, so if you are looking to move more than 1,000 shares at a time, there is a potential advantage to using the Health Care Sector SPDR, especially if you are an active trader.
All three of these broad sector ETFs have the same principal holdings: large pharmaceutical and equipment companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Merck & Co. Inc. and Amgen Inc.
However, the Vanguard Health Care ETF does not hold the same portfolio as the well-regarded Vanguard Health Care Fund (VGHCX) which, unlike the ETF, has a minimum holding period of one year.
Full Story: http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090415/FREE/904159983/1025/ETF
The ETF Innovators Global Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Index tracks the performance of 40 stem cell and regenerative medicine companies on a global basis with market caps of less than $1 billion at the inception of the index. The total market value of the index will be tracked as a gauge of investor and trader sentiment toward stem cell companies from a starting value of 3,928 on 2/22/09.
The accompanying table includes statistics for the 40 companies in the ETF Innovators Global Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Index, which is down 10% at a composite market value of 3,533 from 3,928 at the index inception on 2/22/09. The index is down by 23.7% over the past year on an equal-weight basis, compared to losses of 24.5% for the Healthcare Sector SPDR (XLV), 16.2% for iShares Nasdaq Biotech (IBB), 18.5% for SPDR S&P Biotech (XBI), 28.5% for PowerShares Biotech & Genome (PBE), and 36.9% for the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY).
On a year-to-date basis (YTD), the stem cell index is up 28.8% on an equal-weight basis, thanks to major gains in many of the smallest companies in the index with the companies listed in the table in descending order by their YTD stock price changes. The stem cell index performance on a YTD basis compares favorably to losses of 9.1% for the Healthcare Sector SPDR (XLV), 6.8% for iShares Nasdaq Biotech (IBB), 13.5% for SPDR S&P Biotech (XBI), 6.6% for PowerShares Biotech & Genome (PBE), and 4.9% for the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY).
Integra LifeSciences (IART) regained its position as the market cap leader in the index at $634M since I last wrote about the index one month ago. Osiris Therapeutics (OSIR) has lost over one-third of its market value so far this year after halting a Phase 3 clinical trial in late March for what the Company termed a flawed trial design resulting in higher than expected placebo response rates. The most widely followed and traded proxy included in the index is StemCells (STEM), which has gained about 15% YTD and 8% over the past year.
One of the top 10 stock price gainers YTD (registering a gain of nearly 100%) is NeoStem (NBS), which is a leader in the pre-disease collection, processing and long-term storage of adult stem cells for future medical applications. Click here for a link to NeoStem’s five minute adult stem cell documentary video, which is hosted at their website.
Full Story: http://biomedreports.com/articles/most-popular/800-stem-cell-index-ytd-analysis-banking-on-neostem.html
One momentum strategy that an investor could implement would be to purchase the best returning US sector ETF(s) over the trailing 3, 6, and 12 months. This strategy has been written about extensively by Mebane Faber, author of The Ivy Portfolio. 
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