With three months left in 2024, U.S. health care stocks are out of sick bay and up 12.3% on a year-to-date basis, as measured by the S&P 500 Health Care Index. While health care stocks continue to move in the right direction, consistently trailing the main S&P equities index is not what sector investors had in mind.
Yet the industry has undergone massive technological changes that should benefit fund holders for years to come. Consider the growth in key areas like telehealth, surgery, data analytics and (especially) biotechnology. Then add in the built-in benefit from tens of millions of baby boomers (11,000 of whom turn age 65 every day) and Generation X advancing in age, all of them increasingly dependent on the products and services offered by the health care sector.
With that background in mind, let’s take a closer look at six health care exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that can provide easy access to the best stocks the sector can offer at a time when health care stocks should – and likely will – continue to grow over the next decade.
This post originally appeared at U.S. News & World Report.