HEAL vs XHS

HEALCGlobal X HealthTech ETF

XHSAState Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF

In short

HEAL Most health care ETFs are pharma giants in a trench coat. HEAL goes the other way: roughly 40 health technology names worldwide, tracked against Global X's own HealthTech index, in a cohort built mostly of broad sector funds.

XHS Most health care ETFs are pharma funds in disguise. XHS buys the delivery system instead: insurers, hospitals, distributors and clinics, roughly equal weighted so one giant insurer does not run the show.

Stated mandate

HEAL The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Global X HealthTech Index.

XHS The fund seeks to track the total return of the S&P Health Care Services Select Industry Index before fees and expenses, providing targeted exposure to health care services companies.

Why people hold it

• HEAL Focused by design. Roughly 40 holdings on a global mandate, so the health technology theme actually drives returns instead of being diluted by the whole sector.
• Rules-based, not manager-driven: it tracks the Global X HealthTech Index before fees and expenses, so what you own follows a published methodology rather than someone's conviction list.
• Global reach. Health technology innovation is not a US-only story, and the mandate is worldwide rather than fenced into the S&P 500 like several of the biggest sector options.
• A standard 1940 Act ETF wrapper holding equities. No leverage, no derivatives overlay, no K-1 surprises at tax time.

• XHS No drugmakers, no device makers. The index tracks four slices of care delivery: distributors, facilities, health care services and managed care.ssga.com
• Modified equal weighting spreads about 60 names across large, mid and small caps, so the portfolio is not a bet on two or three mega caps.ssga.com
• 0.35% a year sits below the 0.50% median for broad health care ETFs, on a fund that has been running since 2011.
• Ranks in the top quartile of the broad health care ETFs we grade.

Worth knowing

• HEAL The 0.50% expense ratio sits right at the cohort median, but it is several times what the broad sector anchors charge: VHT at 0.09%, XLV and FHLC at 0.08%. Focus costs money here.
• Concentration cuts both ways. With about 40 names in one theme, individual holdings move the fund far more than they would in a several-hundred-stock health care index.
• It is one of the smaller and less actively traded funds in its peer group, which typically means wider bid-ask spreads than the household-name sector ETFs.

• XHS Cheap against the median, not against the giants: XLV, VHT and FHLC charge under a tenth of a percent for cap weighted whole sector exposure.
• Thinly traded next to the big sector funds, so spreads and limit orders matter more here.
• Leaving out pharma and biotech means it moves differently from a whole sector fund, and insurers and hospitals sit close to reimbursement policy.ssga.com

Full HEAL profile⁠

Full XHS profile⁠