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Should You Invest in the First Trust Health Care AlphaDEX ETF (FXH)?

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Launched on 05/08/2007, the First Trust Health Care AlphaDEX ETF (FXH - Free Report) is a passively managed exchange traded fund designed to provide a broad exposure to the Healthcare - Broad segment of the equity market.

Passively managed ETFs are becoming increasingly popular with institutional as well as retail investors due to their low cost, transparency, flexibility and tax efficiency. They are excellent vehicles for long term investors.

Investor-friendly, sector ETFs provide many options 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 7, placing it in top 44%.

Index Details

The fund is sponsored by First Trust Advisors. It has amassed assets over $1.27 billion, making it one of the larger ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Healthcare - Broad segment of the equity market. FXH seeks to match the performance of the StrataQuant Health Care Index before fees and expenses.

The StrataQuant Health Care Index employs the AlphaDEX stock selection methodology to select stocks from the Russell 1000 Index.

Costs

Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.62%, making it on par with most peer products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.29%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that 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, Natera, Inc. (NTRA - Free Report) accounts for about 2.71% of total assets, followed by Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP - Free Report) and The Cigna Group (CI - Free Report) .

The top 10 holdings account for about 21.89% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

So far this year, FXH has gained about 2.93%, and was up about 0.74% in the last one year (as of 05/22/2024). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $90.04 and $109.59.

The ETF has a beta of 0.77 and standard deviation of 16.53% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 86 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

First Trust Health Care AlphaDEX ETF 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, FXH is an outstanding 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 ETF (XLV - Free Report) tracks Health Care Select Sector Index. Vanguard Health Care ETF has $17.88 billion in assets, Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF has $39.46 billion. VHT has an expense ratio of 0.10% and XLV charges 0.09%.

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.

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