XHE vs XHS

XHEBState Street SPDR S&P Health Care Equipment ETF

XHSAState Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF

In short

XHE Health care minus the pharma giants. XHE holds a focused basket of US medical device and supply makers at near-equal weight, so a small stent company gets roughly the same shelf space as an industry titan.

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

XHE The fund seeks to match, before fees and expenses, the total return performance of the S&P Health Care Equipment Select Industry Index and provide exposure to the health care equipment segment of the S&P TMI.

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

• XHE Modified equal weighting, reset on a quarterly schedule, keeps any one giant from dominating the basket. Small and mid-cap device names carry real weight here.ssga.comspglobal.com
• 0.35% a year, below the median for health care ETFs in its peer group. Unusual for a slice this narrow, where issuers often charge up.
• A true pure play: equipment and supplies drawn from the S&P Total Market Index. No pharma, no insurers, no hospital chains diluting the theme.ssga.com
• Launched in 2011 by State Street, so this one has traded through more than a decade of device-sector cycles rather than arriving with the latest theme.

• 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

• XHE Broad health care ETFs like VHT, FHLC and XLV charge a fraction of this. The targeted device basket is what the extra costs buy.
• Thinly traded next to the big sector funds, so spreads can widen when markets move fast.
• One sub-industry, tilted toward smaller companies, and SSGA notes the fund can become non-diversified purely from index weight shifts.ssga.com

• 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 XHE profile⁠

Full XHS profile⁠