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Should You Invest in the PowerShares S&P SmallCap Health Care Portfolio (PSCH)?

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Designed to provide broad exposure to the Healthcare - Broad segment of the U.S. equity market, the PowerShares S&P SmallCap Health Care Portfolio (PSCH - Free Report) is a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on 04/07/2010.

While an excellent vehicle for long term investors, passively managed ETFs are a popular choice among institutional and retail investors due to their low costs, transparency, flexibility, and tax efficiency.

Additionally, sector ETFs offer convenient ways to gain low risk and diversified exposure to a broad group of companies in particular sectors. Healthcare - Broad is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 11, placing it in bottom 31%.

Index Details

The fund is sponsored by Invesco Powershares. It has amassed assets over $496 M, making it one of the average sized ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Healthcare - Broad segment of the U.S. equity market. PSCH seeks to match the performance of the S&P SmallCap 600 Capped Health Care Index before fees and expenses.

This Index is comprised of common stocks of U.S. healthcare companies.These are companies that are principally engaged in the business of providing healthcare-related products & services, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical technology and supplies & facilities and this Index is a subset of the S&P SmallCap 600 Index.

Costs

Cost is an important factor in selecting the right ETF, and cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive counterparts if all other fundamentals are the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.29%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

ETFs offer a diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Healthcare sector--about 100% of the portfolio.

Looking at individual holdings, Chemed Corp (CHE - Free Report) accounts for about 5.10% of total assets, followed by Haemonetics Corp (HAE - Free Report) and Integra Lifesciences Holdings Corp (IART - Free Report) .

The top 10 holdings account for about 34.23% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

So far this year, PSCH return is roughly 25.86%, and is up about 51.08% in the last one year (as of 05/25/2018). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $81.57 and $124.94.

The ETF has a beta of 1.01 and standard deviation of 19.37% for the trailing three-year period, making it a high risk choice in the space. With about 75 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

PowerShares S&P SmallCap Health Care Portfolio holds a Zacks ETF Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Because of this, PSCH is a great option for investors seeking exposure to the Health Care ETFs segment of the market. There are other additional ETFs in the space that investors could consider as well.

Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT - Free Report) tracks MSCI US Investable Market Health Care 25/50 Index and the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV - Free Report) tracks Health Care Select Sector Index. Vanguard Health Care ETF has $7.29 B in assets, Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund has $15.36 B. VHT has an expense ratio of 0.10% and XLV charges 0.13%.

Bottom Line

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.