Predictably, CURE suffered during the biotech repudiation. The ETF “seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, of 300% of the performance of the Healthcare Select Sector Index,” according to Direxion.
That is the underlying index for XLV, an ETF that allocates 18.5% of its weight to the biotech industry. XLV’s peak-to-trough decline was about 7%. CURE did a little better than three times as bad as XLV, falling 19.7% from March peak to its April bottom.
CURE is up 19.5% year-to-date, slightly below triple the 7% returned by XLV.
Spotting the sources of CURE and XLV’s strength amid biotech’s struggles is not difficult. Just four members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up at least 10% year-to-date. Two of those stocks are Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Merck (NYSE: MRK), a combined 20% of XLV’s weight.
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