XLV ETF is one of the most popular options for gaining exposure to the U.S. health care sector, and as such might be an attractive option for investors looking to tilt exposure towards lower risk industries. XLV is among the cheapest ways to gain access to health care companies, and offers impressive depth of holdings as well. XLV can be a good option for a sector rotation strategy or as a means of establishing a long term tilt towards the health care sector.
Sector ETFs
XLK includes market segments like IT services, wireless telecommunication services, and semiconductors to name just a few. The fund invests in the who’s-who of the U.S. tech sector, with major holdings in companies like Apple and IBM. The fund splits its assets mainly between the technology and communication services sectors, while allocating mainly to giant and large cap firms. One of the major strengths of this ETF is the fact that it does not single out a particular sector; rather it invests in companies from all across the technology sector.
XLF contains diversified financial services; insurance; commercial banks; capital markets; real estate investment trusts; thrift & mortgage finance; consumer finance; and real estate management & development. XLF contains the who’s-who of the financial players in the domestic economy, including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and others. This makes it an ideal play on the U.S. financials world, which has not always been stable.
IWM ETF is one of several offering exposure to the Russell 2000 Index, a widely followed measure of small cap U.S. stocks. Given this investment objective, IWM may be useful in a number of different ways; more active investors may use this fund as a way to establish short-term exposure to a risky asset class when risk tolerance is expected to climb, while IWM can also be appealing as a way of accessing an asset class that should be included in any long-term, buy-and-hold portfolio.
GDX offers investors exposure to some of the largest gold mining companies in the world, thereby delivering what can be thought of as “indirect” exposure to gold prices. Because the profitability of gold miners depends on the prevailing market price for the goods that they sell, these stocks will generally exhibit a strong correlations to movements in spot gold prices. When gold prices go up, gold miners make more money (and vice versa). It should be noted, however, that this relationship is not perfect; in certain environments, gold miner stocks and physical gold prices can move in opposite directions, and correlation between the two can be less than perfect.
EEM is one of the most popular ETFs in the world, and is one of the oldest products on the market offering exposure to stock markets of emerging economies. Given this objective, EEM can be used in a number of different ways; this ETF can be equally useful as a short-term trade to increase exposure to risky assets or as a core holding in a long-term, buy-and-hold portfolio. EEM
The XLY offers exposure to the consumer discretionary sector, making it an appealing option for investors looking to implement a sector rotation strategy or tilt exposure towards corners of the U.S. market that may perform well during a recovery. XLY offers impressive liquidity, cost efficiency, and depth of exposure, making it one of the best ETF options for playing the consumer discretionary sector.
The XLC ETF is State Street’s Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLC) is one of the newest additions to State Street’s popular legacy lineup of sector ETFs. It including many of the major communications, advertising & social media companies in its index. Given its heavy bias towards social media mega-cap stocks (which are often mistaken for Tech) this ETF has a heavy bias towards mega cap growth.
XLI: U.S. industrials sector offers access to transportation firms, commercial and professional services, and manufacturers of capital goods. Given the sector-specific focus, XLI likely doesn’t deserve a core allocation, but may be useful as a means of implementing a tactical tilt towards the industrials sector for a sector rotation strategy. The primary appeal of XLI lies in the impressive liquidity; used widely as a trading vehicle by active investors, XLI will generally feature very narrow bid-ask spreads. The depth of the XLI portfolio, however, leaves something to be desired. This ETF has far fewer holdings than options such as VIS, FIL, and IYJ, and also maintains a big weighting in GE.
SMH tracks the overall performance of the 25 largest, U.S. listed companies that produce semiconductors, a crucial component of modern computing. Semiconductor chips act as the brains to numerous devices that we rely on today, including smartphones, calculators, computers, and much more. As technology continues to improve and expand, these chips will invariably be in demand to help power new devices. The fund focuses on U.S. stocks entirely, offering investors concentrated exposure to America’s semiconductor industry. Investors should note that this fund is equally split between giant, large, and mid cap size companies,