PINK vs XHS

PINKCSimplify Health Care ETF

XHSAState Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF

In short

PINK Most big health care ETFs just buy the index and sit still. PINK is a stock picker: roughly 60 U.S. names chosen bottom-up, multi-cap, growth-leaning, with room to back companies developing new medicines or cutting system costs.

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

PINK PINK seeks long-term capital appreciation through U.S. health care companies, using a multi-cap, fundamental bottom-up approach. It generally follows a growth strategy and may emphasize companies developing medicines or improving health-care-system cost or quality.

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

• PINK Active by design: about 60 U.S. health care names picked bottom-up, not several hundred sorted by market cap. Concentration cuts both ways, but each pick actually matters here.
• Measured against an all-cap health care benchmark, so small and mid caps are in play, not just the megacap pharma that dominates S&P 500 based sector funds like XLV and RSPH.
• Charges 0.51%, right at the category median, which is unusual pricing for a hand-picked portfolio rather than an index feed.
• Sits in the upper half of the broad health care sector group on our review, and pays out quarterly.

• 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

• PINK The category's index heavyweights (VHT, FHLC, XLV) charge under a tenth of a percent. PINK's fee is roughly six times that, and it buys the manager's judgment.
• No index to hug. Holdings come from a manager's calls, so the fund can sit far from the health care benchmark in either direction.
• One sector, one country, about 60 holdings, growth lean. Trial results and health policy headlines land with full force here.

• 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 PINK profile⁠

Full XHS profile⁠