PINK vs XLV

PINKCSimplify Health Care ETF

XLVAState Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR 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.

XLV Live since 1998, XLV is the original way to own health care: about 60 S&P 500 names, a 0.08% fee, and one of the busiest tickers in the sector. Big pharma and device makers, not small-cap biotech.

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.

XLV The fund seeks to track, before expenses, the price and yield performance of the Health Care Select Sector Index, which represents the health care sector of the S&P 500 Index.

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.

• XLV 0.08% a year against a cohort median of 0.50%. That ties it with FHLC as the cheapest in the group and edges VHT at 0.09%.
• One of the most actively traded funds in its category, which generally keeps bid-ask spreads thin whether you trade 10 shares or 10,000.
• Launched December 1998 as one of the first US sector funds, and it has tracked its S&P 500 health care index closely ever since.
• Covers the whole sector in one line: pharma, devices, providers, biotech, life-science tools and health tech. Pays quarterly.ssga.com

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.

• XLV Cap-weighted and about 60 names deep, so the largest drug and device makers carry most of the weight.ssga.com
• S&P 500 members only. Mid- and small-cap health care names sit outside the mandate.
• One sector, one set of headlines: drug pricing rules, patent expirations and policy shifts move the whole basket together.

Full PINK profile⁠

Full XLV profile⁠