Tag Archives: health

The First Cancer Immunotherapy ETF

Investors can target immunotherapy cancer treatment companies through a new ETF. A look at the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy ETF. Provides exposure to a quickly growing segment of the biotechnology space. With the advancements in biotechnology generating some attractive investment opportunities, exchange traded fund investors may now focus on a group of companies that specialize in the growing field of cancer immunotherapy. The Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy ETF (NasdaqGM: CNCR ) began trading Wednesday, October 14, according to a press release . CNCR has a 0.79% expense ratio. “Immunotherapy is changing the way many cancers are being treated,” Brad Loncar, Chief Executive Officer of Loncar Investments, said in the press release. “This innovative field within biotechnology is expected to become the foundational treatment for cancer over the next ten years. We think it is important to give investors a benchmark to track the progress of this growing biotechnology sector, which over time will likely continue to have a positive impact on society.” CNCR tries to reflect the performance of the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index, which was developed by biotechnology investor Brad Loncar. The underlying index tracks large pharmaceutical and growth-oriented biotechnology companies in the cancer treatment space. Specifically, the index tracks companies that are developing new classes of therapies, like checkpoint inhibitors, next generation vaccines and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technologies. “Biotech stocks tend to get grouped together as a whole, yet areas like immunotherapy trade on their own unique circumstances and innovations,” according to Loncar Investments. “While traditional medicines like chemotherapies often give cancer a broad punch, the benefit of using immunotherapy is derived from the immune system’s dynamic nature and the way it can more precisely be tailored to fight a patient’s disease.” The underlying index first selects seven top large pharmaceutical companies working on immunotherapy for their strategic focus on cancer treatment and their leadership role in the field. Additionally, the index picks the top 23 growth biotechnology companies in immunotherapy by market capitalization. The cancer index is then equally weighted. The index also screens companies for a number of factors, including drugs approved by either the FDA or EMA that harness the immune system to fight cancer, drugs in the human stage of testing that harnesses the immune system, intentions to begin human stage testing of a drug that harnesses the immune system to fight cancer, or announcement of an immunotherapy collaboration or partnership with a major pharmaceutical company. Top holdings include Ziopharm Oncology (NASDAQGS: ZIOP ) 4.9%, Kite Pharma (NASDAQGS: KITE ) 4.7%, Celgene (NASDAQGS: CELG ) 4.7%, Pfizer (NASDAQGS: PFE ) 4.5% and Bristol-Myers (NASDAQGS: BMY ) 4.4%. “The Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy ETF allows investors to participate in the breakthrough in this well-defined sector in a diversified way,” J. Garrett Stevens, CEO of Exchange Traded Concepts, said in the press release. A cancer-themed ETF is not new to the ETF industry. Previously, ETF investors could tap into this segment of the biotech industry through the HealthShares Cancer ETF ( HHK ), but the fund closed in 2008. Additionally, XShares, the fund provider of the HealthShares line, was sold to a unit of Deutsche Bank in 2010. Max Chen contributed to this article . Disclosure: None.

Dollar Weakens; Time For Large-Cap Value ETFs?

The economic outlook looks misted up yet again by undesirable global events. The Chinese economy is striving to ease a hard landing; Japan is also seeing deceleration in its growth pace; European markets are far from steady despite a QE policy; capitals are gushing out of emerging markets and most importantly, recent reports out of the lone star in the developed market pack, the U.S. economy, aren’t quite favorable thanks to a soft labor market. Added to this, heightened speculations about the Fed lift-off have taken a backseat. While muted inflation and global growth worries had held back the Fed from ratifying a rate hike in its September meeting, a slowdown in the labor market over the last three months have almost killed the possibility of a hike at the December Fed meeting, guarantying cheap money inflows throughout this year. As a result, equities jumped and the greenback dived. And the case for large-cap ETF investing had never been stronger than now. Investors should note that a subdued greenback sets the stage of large-cap stocks’ outperformance as this group of companies has considerable exposure in the international market. So, foreign profits are curtailed in a stronger dollar environment when repatriating back home. That being said, we would like to note that levels of uncertainty have flared up in the investing world. This is truer given the fact that the IMF recently slashed its global growth forecast for 2015 and 2016. Back home, the Fed also cut the expectation for 2016 real GDP growth to 2.1─2.8% from 2.3─3.0% though the same for 2015 was upgraded to 1.9─2.5% from 1.7─2.3% projected in June. The Fed also lowered its 2015 projection for personal consumer expenditure inflation to 0.3─1.0% from 0.6─1.0% guided in June. The earnings picture looks equally gloomy as the S&P 500 earnings and revenues are expected to decline 5.7% each in the third quarter. This does not leave the U.S. market without doubts and mean that some investors might want to look at large caps for the vast majority of their exposure, and especially so in the value space. While one can do this with individual securities, there are a number of value-focused large cap ETFs that can be better choices. Below, we highlight four of such large-cap value ETFs which delivered smart returns in the last one-month frame and could be intriguing choices ahead should the market forces remain the same. First Trust Morningstar Dividend Leaders Index ETF (NYSEARCA: FDL ) This fund follows the Morningstar Dividend Leaders Index with AUM of $810 million in its asset base. In total, the fund holds 99 stocks. From a sector look, consumer staples, utilities, telecom, energy and industrials each take a double-digit allocation in the basket (read: 5 Investor-Friendly Dow Dog ETFs for 2015 ). Expense ratio comes in at 0.45%. The fund added over 5.8% in the last one month (as of October 12, 2015) and has a dividend yield of 3.60% annually. The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) with a Medium risk outlook. iShares Core High Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA: HDV ) This product provides exposure to 74 dividend stocks by tracking the Morningstar Dividend Yield Focus Index. From a sector look, the fund is well spread out with double-digit exposure to Energy, Consumer Staples, Health Care, Telecom and Information Technology. This Zacks Rank #3 fund is among the largest ETF in the large cap space with AUM of about $4.17 billion. It charges 12 bps in fees per year and gained over 5.1% in the last one year. The fund has an annual dividend yield of 3.86%. First Trust Value Line Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA: FVD ) This ETF tracks the Value Line Dividend Index, giving investors exposure to about 209 companies that have a Value Line Safety Ranking of #1 or #2. Value Line selects those companies that have higher-than-average dividend yield as compared with the indicated dividend yield of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Stock Price Index. This results in an equal weight approach for individual securities. Utilities takes the top spot at 22.7% of assets, followed by Financials (18%), Industrials (14.9%) and Consumer Staples (12%) (read: 5 Smart Beta ETFs to Beat the Choppy Market ). The Zacks Rank #3-fund is a bit pricier than many other products in the dividend space, charging investors 70 bps a year in fees. It has accumulated $1.4 million in its asset base. SPDR Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA: SDY ) This ultra-popular fund provides exposure to the 101 U.S. stocks that have been consistently increasing their dividend every year for at least 25 years. It follows the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index and has amassed $12.6 billion in AUM. Expense ratio comes in at 0.35%. The product is widely diversified across components as each security accounts for less than 2.82% of total assets. Financials is the top sector taking up one-fourth of the portfolio while consumer staples (15.1%), industrials (13.7%), utilities (11.6%) and materials (11.2%) round off the next four spots. The fund was up nearly 4.6% in the last one-month and has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3. Link to the original post on Zacks.com

Time For Dow ETFs?

Dow Jones Industrial Average has been the worst performing index among the popular trio – S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq – thanks mainly to a freefall in oil prices and rising rate worries in the U.S. Added to this, fears of a hard landing in China and its ripples throughout the world sent this key index into the correction territory in August. So far this year (as of October 9, 2015), SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA: DIA ) is down about 4%. However, things seemed to have been set right for the Dow Jones lately on the oil price jump and the diminishing prospect of a rate hike this year. Oil prices regained some of the lost ground as the U.S. count of oil and gas drilling rigs slipped to a five-year low. Also, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects a remarkable drop in U.S. crude production through the middle of next year before a turnaround in late 2016. Oil output is estimated to fall from 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015 to 8.9 million bpd in 2016. Needless to say, the rise in oil prices supported energy stocks greatly in recent sessions. On the other hand, a weak September job data pushed the speculative timeline of the Fed rate lift-off to early next year. After all, the year-to-date monthly pace of job gains now averages 198K and the pace for the last three months is much lower at 167K. This compares with the monthly average of 260K for 2014, hinting at the lost momentum in U.S. economic growth. And the stocks surged in hopes of incessant cheap money flows. Moreover, a soft job report curbed the dollar strength which in turn provided a long-awaited boost to the commodities and material stocks. Though all the major benchmarks are correlated and got the boost they needed in October from the Fed and energy-centric optimism, Dow remained relatively more beaten-down and thus is more prone to a sturdy reversal. If this was not enough, a dovish Fed pushed the interest rates down to a lower territory. This in turn brightened the appeal for more yielding securities. Notably, among the top ETFs, Jones Industrial Average-based DIA yields 2.33% annually (as of October 9, 2015) against the S&P 500-based SPY ‘s 2.02% and Nasdaq-100 based QQQ ‘s 1.08%. Below, we highlight a few Dow Jones-based ETF options which could be intriguing options to play: DIA seeks to match the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index. The index is price weighted and measures the performance of 30 large cap stocks traded in the U.S. markets. Industrials, Financials, IT, Consumer Discretionary and Health Care all hold double-digit exposure in the fund. However, it is subject to company-specific concentration risks as it invests more than half of its portfolio in the top 10 holdings. This $11.6 billion-fund trades in large volumes of over 5 million shares daily and charges 17 bps in fees. It advanced 4.8% in the last 10 trading sessions (as of October 9, 2015). The fund has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 with a Medium risk outlook. iShares Dow Jones U.S. ETF (NYSEARCA: IYY ) This $941.1 million ETF also tracks the Dow Jones U.S. total market index. This fund has a proportionate exposure in almost all sectors with maximum emphasis on IT (19.77%), Financials (17.47%), Health Care (13.91%), Consumer Discretionary (13.55%), and Industrials (10.66%). Unlike DIA, this 1,280-stock fund invests less than 15% share in the top 10 holdings. IYY charges 20 basis points as fees and added 4.2% in the last 10 trading sessions. ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (NYSEARCA: SDOG ) This fund applies the ‘Dogs of the Dow Theory’ on a sector-by-sector basis using the S&P 500. This could be easily done by selecting the five highest yielding securities in each of the 10 GICS sectors and equally weighing them. These higher yielding stocks will appreciate in order to bring their yields in line with the market, leading to outsized gains. This approach results in a portfolio of 51 stocks with each security accounting for less than 2.33% of total assets. The fund focuses on yield in the large cap market while giving investors roughly equal exposure to all sectors. SDOG has accumulated $1.1 billion in AUM and trades in good volume of more than 180,000 shares. It charges 40 bps in annual fees and has an annual dividend yield of 3.63%. The ETF was up over 5.9% in the last 10 days. Original Post