Health Care ETFs’ $140 Billion Boost
February 19th at 6:00am by Tom Lydon
When President Barack Obama put his John Hancock on the $787 billion stimulus package, $140 billion of it was related specifically to fixing health care and, in turn, related exchange traded funds (ETFs).
What’s in the bill?
- A provision to help workers who lose their jobs pay for the health care they were receving
- A provision to make health care records available electronically
- $19 billion in grants and incentives to purchase health information technology
Some believe that a little boost was given to the industry as a result of the exit of Tom Daschle as the health and human services secretary nominee and in hopes of a new candidate committed to less stringent government control over the industry, states Richard Widows of TheStreet.com.
This doesn’t mean that all the indexes in the industry have been flourishing. If you decide to play the industry, do your homework and remember to watch the trends. Here are three ETFs that are near their 50-day moving averages.
- Health Care Select SPDR (XLV): down 1.4% year-to-date
- HOLDRs Biotech (BBH): up 0.4% year-to-date
- PowerShares Dynamic Biotech & Genome (PBE): up 2.8% year-to-date
