Well-documented has been the ongoing ascent of health care ETFs. The Health Care Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLV), the largest health care ETF, entered Friday’s session with a 2014 gain of nearly 16%.
With some modest upside to this point in Friday trading, XLV resides just pennies below the all-time high the fund touched earlier in the week. Other health care ETFs have benefited from the sector’s ongoing upside (XLV has more than doubled over the past three years) and that includes plenty of funds that eschew the cap-weighted methodology. [Strategic Health Care Soars]
While there is considerable consternation and debate surrounding the terminology “smart beta” not all non-cap weighted ETFs fit the bill as smart beta. Equal-weight ETFs are just that, equally-weighted. Fortunately, that terminology has been met with considerably less resistance. More importantly, equal-weight ETFs offer opportunity at the sector as highlighted by the Guggenheim S&P Equal Weight Healthcare ETF (NYSEArca: RYH). [Smart Beta: Don’t Hate The ETFs]
RYH has $321.6 million in assets under management, of which $113 million has come into the ETF just this quarter, highlighting investors’ willingness to embrace more than just the usual health care ETF fare.
That willingness has been rewarded as RYH entered Friday with a year-to-date gain of 17.4%. Earlier today, the ETF touched another new all-time high.
“As is the case with other equally weighted funds, RYH offers slightly more of a small- and mid-cap tilt than its market-cap-weighted peers. For example, 25% of RYH’s portfolio consists of mid-cap names, compared with just 5% of XLV and 12% of VHT. RYH is only slightly more volatile than its cap-weighted counterparts,” said Morningstar analyst Robert Goldsborough in a note out earlier this week.