Health Care ETFs Have Been Taking The Long Way Home

It’s been rather startling to watch the equity markets make a run at 6 consecutive weeks of gains. Weren’t folks all but promising Dow 5000 back at Dow 6500? Didn’t the S&P 500’s 666 mark seem so ominous… that the index appeared destined for 500?

Scores of bears haven’t thrown in the towel. And pullback believers, including myself, are almost praying for a bit of profit taking. (Nothing truly wonderful ever seems to come from straight-line upward movement, just as nothing apocalyptic ever seems to come from free falling markets.) 

Yet with Noubini predicting the S&P 500 to bottom at 600 as well as predicting the economy to be stuck in recession throughout 2010, market doom-n-gloom doesn’t seem quite as “doomy-n-gloomy.” Fits and starts… sure. Retesting and rethinking… it seems quite probable. But the idea of breaking the March lows feels less likely than setting higher lows in the 700s for the S&P.

Regardless of how it all shakes out, one has to question what happened to the health care sector. In the bear’s 18-month reign of terror, health care had arguably held up the best. Take a look at Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT) versus ETF sector funds like Tech (XLK), Energy (XLE), Consumer (XLY), Utilities (XLU) and Materials (XLB).

Full Story:  http://www.etfexpert.com/etf_expert/2009/04/etf-expert-health-care-etfs-have-been-taking-a-longer-road-home.html