Healthcare

Funds that invest in United States companies focused on delivering health services or products.

						as of 25 Feb 2007
Name	Symbol	Annual Expenses	# of Holdings	PE	Yield %	Top Holdings	%
First Trust Amex Biotechnology Fund	FBT	0.60%	20	124		Affymetrix Invitrogen Gilead Sciences	6 6 6
HealthShares Cardio Devices ETF	HHE	0.75%	22			Cryolife Volcano Bard	10 6 5
HealthShares Diagnostics ETF	HHD	0.75%	22			Meridian Bioscience Hologic Myriad Genetics	9 7 6
HealthShares Emerging Cancer ETF	HHJ	0.75%	22			GPC Biotech Array Biopharma GTX	8 8 7
HealthShares Enabling Technologies ETF	HHV	0.75%	22			Illumina Sangamo Bioscience Sigma-aldrich	8 8 6
HealthShares Patient Care Services ETF	HHB	0.75%	22			Health net Davita Healthsouth	10 7 7
iShares Dow Jones U.S. Healthcare Sector Index Fund	IYH	0.48%	160	27	0.85	J&J Pfizer Merck	10 10 5
iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index Fund	IBB	0.48%	169	42	0.00	Amgen Gilead Celgene	13 6 5
iShares S&P Global Healthcare Index Fund	IXJ	0.48%	81	24	0.84	J&J Pfizer GlaxoSmithKline	8 8 7
Merrill Lynch Biotech HOLDRS	BBH	$8/ 100 shares	16	27		Genentech Amgen Gilead_Sciences	39 24 11
Merrill Lynch Pharmaceutical HOLDRs	PPH	$8/ 100 shares	20	17		J&J Pfizer Merck	22 19 12
PowerShares Dynamic Biotech & Genome Portfolio	PBE	0.60%	31	26	0.00	Gilead Waters Genentech	6 5 5
PowerShares Dynamic Healthcare Sector Portfolio	PTH	0.60%	61	20	0.00	Coventry McKesson Humana	3 3 3
PowerShares Dynamic Healthcare Services Portfolio	PTJ	0.60%	30	18	0.00	McKesson Humana Express Scripts	5 5 5
PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Portfolio	PJP	0.60%	29	23	0.48	Abbott Genentech Wyeth	6 5 5
PowerShares FTSE RAFI Health Care Sector Portfolio	PRFH	0.60%	70	20		Pfizer Merck J&J	13 11 10
Select Sector SPDR Fund - Health	XLV	0.24%	55	20	1.30	J&J Pfizer Merck	12 12 6
Vanguard Healthcare ETFs	VHT	0.25%	267	23	1.13	J&J Pfizer Merck	10 10 5

Bold listings are recommended for this category.

Fund Comparison

HealthShares added five funds focused on narrow portions of the healthcare industry. We don't recommend these funds with their small number of holdings and relatively high expenses.

With the growth in funds within this category, we won't review all the funds. We recommend two funds within this category. First, we want a broadly diversified yet low expense fund. The Vanguard Healthcare VIPERs (VHT) offer the best combination of low expenses with a large number of holdings.

We also suggest owning a Biotechnology focused fund. These companies have better new product pipelines than the large pharmaceutical companies. The successful companies will either launch major products or be purchased by a larger company. Either outcome should be good for investors over the long-term. We prefer the increased holdings of the the PowerShares Dynamic Biotech & Genome Portfolio (PBE) fund without the large concentrations of Merrill Lynch Biotech HOLDRs (BBH). BBH has over 60% of its holdings in only two companies (Genentech and Amgen). While we like the prospects for these two companies, we do prefer the broader diversification offered by PBE.

Fund Charts

Biotech Funds: BBH vs. FBT, IBB and PBE chart for the last year

General Healthcare Funds: XLV vs. PPH, IYH, IXJ, and VHT for the last year

General Healthcare Funds: VHT vs. PRFH and PJP for the last year

HealthShares funds for the last year

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Eustis Investing Strategies (EIS) does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of this information, nor do we assume any liability for any loss that may result from its use. EIS personnel may own shares in the funds recommended on this website.

Fund Comparison

Fund Charts

Send mail to master@eustis-invest.com with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © 2002 - 2007 Eustis Investing Strategies

Send mail to master@eustis-invest.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2002 - 2007 Eustis Investing Strategies