By recent standards, Thursday was a docile day for the health care sector, the second-best performer in the S&P 500 this year behind materials. “Just” six healthcare exchange traded funds made new highs Thursday compared with 26 the day before.
When six of a sector’s ETFs reaching new highs on a particular day is considered a slow day, that speaks to that sector’s strength. Additional anecdotes highlight the strength of healthcare ETFs in 2015. For example, the Health Care Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLV), the largest healthcare ETF by assets, is up 6.1% year-to-date, but that can be considered “average” among healthcare funds.
At Thursday’s close, five the top 10 non-leveraged sector ETFs and four of the 10 best non-leveraged ETFs of any variety to this point in 2015 were healthcare funds.
On the basis of a bullish outlook for managed care providers, biotech names and healthcare distributors and assorted other catalysts for the healthcare sector, we went looking for the healthcare ETFs that are really delivering this year, some of which have “hidden gem” status. The requirements for inclusion on this list are being a dedicated healthcare sector or industry fund with a 2015 gain of at least 10%. Let’s get started with the…