ETF Investing: We Still Get Sick — Even In Recessions! XPH and IHI For Healthcare

Everyone is going to get sick at some time in their lives. It could be something as simple as the common cold or a complex series of symptoms that takes years to diagnose. The upside of all of this is that the medical business is a relatively safe bet when it comes to investments. If you see the benefit of this and want to put some money into a health care related investment, look into an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that will give you the opportunity to hold shares in several different companies rather than trying to guess who’s going to come up with the next miracle cure.

There are a couple different companies that let you get your feet wet in the medical field. You could invest in medical devices, which covers everything from stethoscopes to complicated surgical tools. iShares Dow Jones US Medical Devices ETF (NYSE: IHI) lets you in on an investment that includes leaders in the field such as Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX), Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT), and Covidien, Ltd. (NYSE: COV). Each of these companies provides medical devices that hospitals simply cannot do without.

IHI looks to achieve results that correspond to the Dow Jones US Select Medical Equipment index and through a computer aided system, rather than by using money managers, they’re able to charge only a 0.48% fee to maintain your stock.

Another great way to invest in the healthcare business is to buy shares in the companies who work tirelessly to provide lifesaving drugs. The Exchange Traded Fund SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals (XPH) lets you in on several of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world by following a passive management strategy that tracks the total return performance of the S&P Pharmaceutical Select Industry index.

With only a 0.35% fee to maintain XPH, you can see why using a computing system to select the pharmaceutical mix is more cost effective than the traditional money manager system. Their impressive list of top 10 holdings is listed below:

4.87%: ALPHARMA INC (NYSE: ALO)
4.86%: BARR PHARMA INC (NYSE: BRL)
4.9%: BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB (NYSE: BMY)
4.88%: JOHNSON AND JOHNSON DC (NYSE: JNJ)
4.89%: MERCK CO INC (NYSE: MRK)
4.9%: PFIZER INC (NYSE: PFE)
4.9%: SCHERING PLOUGH CP (NYSE:SGP)
4.93%: Sepracor Inc. (NASDAQ: SEPR)
4.84%: VALEANT PHARMA INTL (NYSE: VRX)
4.97%: WATSON PHARMACEUTICALS (NYSE:WPI)