Healthcare and staples ETFs

tranquility1

Does anyone have any recommendations, please?

These will perform well in bad times? 

grumiofoundation

These will perform well in bad times? 

Is this a statement or a question?

Linton

Health is a difficult sector in that it contains the very high risk hi tech pharmaceutical developers and things like care homes or mainly US hospitals which would be much less volatile.  So you need to know exactly what sort of companies you are investing in.  This would to me make a Health sector ETF inappropriate.

I guess you really are talking about "Value" versus "Growth".  This is an important balance to be considered when constructing a portfolio.   "Value" is much less drivien by fashion and speculation than Growth and tends to do better in the bad times. Staples are not the only sector where Value stocks are significant.  So rather than cherry pick sectors you could look at "Value" ETFs.

However unless you have say >>£100K to invest and are looking particularly at medium term (say 15 years max) investments I suggest that you dont get involved at this level of detail.

Prism

The usual problem with this. The companies in the healthcare and staples sectors may do well enough in a downturn but their shares prices may not reflect it. The defensive properties of these two sectors are widely known and their current prices reflect that. They are pretty expensive.

Anyway, Xtrackers, SPDR and Lyxor  offer ETFs on these sectors.

Neruda

I hold the iShares Healthcare Innovation ETF and it has served me well, but clearly this is high-risk and a "growth" rather than "value" investment.There are good reasons why the traditional advice to prepare for hard times is to invest in bonds as well as stocks, not to invest in "healthcare and staples" shares as well as growth stocks.

Oh: I also hold the Cambria Global Value ETF (based on the Shiller-CAPE index) and this is mainly consumer staples at the moment,  but since this is only marketed in the USA I doubt if you can invest in it.

tebbins

tranquility1 said:

Does anyone have any recommendations, please?

These will perform well in bad times? 

For someone who knows everything about everything...