Courtesy of “The ETF Professor”–his work appears courtesy of Benzinga.com, and is also re-distributed through leading publishers
Conservative investors and risk-takers alike have been rewarded for owning U.S. health care stocks and ETFs focusing on those names in recent years.
The data supports that assertion. A look at three major health care ETFs, all of which do things a little bit differently, shows significant out-performance of the S&P 500 over various time frames.
For example, the Health Care Select SPDR (NYSE: XLV) is up 30.3 percent in the past five years compared to 12.3 percent for the S&P 500.
Since December 2011 when it became a Market Vectors fund, Market Vectors Pharmaceutical ETF is up almost 20 percent. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (NASDAQ: IBB) has nearly doubled in the past five years.
Bottom line: Investors have done well when staying at home with U.S. health care stocks, but that does not mean there are not global opportunities worth considering. After all, some of the biggest health care companies in the world are not U.S. firms.
France’s Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) and Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA) stand as just two examples.
Here is a look at some international developed market health care ETFs to see if going global with this sector is a better idea than staying domestic.