The recent carnage in biotech investing seems more vicious than anticipated. This hot corner of the broad u.s. healthcare market has seen many a correction before, but none seemed as rigorous as it looks now. The recent rout was instigated merely by a tweet — by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Her tweet raised concerns over the over pricing on life-saving drugs. Questions over biotech pricing came on the heels of a 5,455% price hike (in about two months) of a drug called Daraprim, used to treat malaria and toxoplasmosis. This gigantic leap in pricing action was taken by a privately held biotech company Turing Pharmaceuticals (read: How Hillary Clinton Crushed Biotech ETFs with One Tweet).
Pricing issues in the biotech space has long been a concern. On the whole, branded drug prices underwent a rise of about 14.8% last year, as per research firm Truveris. There are several other drugs namely cycloserine, Isuprel, Nitropress, and doxycycline that have seen enormous price hikes this year, per of a 5,455%. This along with overvaluation concerns led to a bloodbath in this otherwise soaring sector last week.
In fact, growing pains for biotech investing led the biggest related ETF iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology (IBB – ETF report) to incur the largest weekly loss in seven years. Plus, investors should note that biotech stocks underperformed the broader market during the last four election cycles, as noted by Barrons.com.
Barrons' analysis shows that the broader market indices including S&P 500 (SPY), Dow Jones (DIA) and Nasdaq composite (QQQ) gained 11%, 8%, and 18%, respectively, on average against 15% loss incurred by the Nasdaq Biotech index during last four election phases. In such a scenario, it is wise to take some rest off biotech stocks and ETFs, and instead spin your attention toward the more stable but equally promising broader healthcare ETFs (read: Guide to Inverse & Leveraged Biotech ETF Investing).
Why Broader Healthcare?
The broader healthcare sector is also loaded with potential. A whirlwind of mergers and acquisitions, promising industry fundamentals, plenty of drug launches, growing demand in emerging markets, ever-increasing healthcare spending and Obama care play major roles in making it a lucrative bet for the long term (read: Obamacare is Here to Stay: 3 ETFs to Buy).
Moreover, unlike biotech, healthcare ETFs are relatively defensive in nature and do not completely let investors down even in a broader market sell-off. In the latest biotech tumult, when ETFs like SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI), Medical Breakthroughs ETF (SBIO – ETF report) and BioShares Biotechnology Clinical Trials Fund (BBC – ETF report) retreated in the range of 6% to 8% on September 25, most broader healthcare ETFs lost in the range of 2% to 3%.
As a result, Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) healthcare ETFs could be in watch ahead, at least until the penchant for biotech investing returns. Investors should note that the following healthcare ETFs hold a Zacks ETF Rank #1 (see all Healthcare ETFs here).
PowerShares S&P SmallCap Health Care Portfolio (PSCH – ETF report)
