HealthShares Cancer (HHK)

All Comments on HHK

  • commenter
    David
    Jackson
    Apr 10 03:37 PM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Does this mean the HealthShares ETFs are not market cap weighted? And couldn't you achieve the result you're looking for with a sector ETF covering all of pharma and biotech, but equal weighted? Reply
  • commenter
    David
    Jackson
    Apr 10 02:25 PM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Jeff, thanks for answering questions.

    Would you talk about the expense ratios of your ETFs versus others, and also the tax efficiency, trading costs and buy-sell spreads?

    Cheers,
    DJ     Reply
  • commenter
    cdelfeld
    Apr 10 01:02 PM
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    I wonder if Mr. Feldman would comment on how average investors can decide which one of the healthshares ETFs is right for them? Are these products primarily for institutional investors and only the most specialized individual investors?

    Carl Delfeld
    Chartwell ETF Advisor     Reply
  • commenter
    Jeff Feldman
    Apr 10 12:31 PM
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Diabetes affects 21 million people in the U.S. and that number is expected to double over the next 15 years. It is a potentially devestating issue. Our Metabolic-Endocrine Disorders ETF (HHM) includes several companies that are working on new treatments for diabetes and obesity. Reply
  • commenter
    Jeff Feldman
    Apr 10 12:25 PM
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    The “narrowness” of our product line relates to the fact that we have 22 to 25 stocks in each portfolio. Since we currently have 15 ETFs trading, one could obviously build a broad healthcare portfolio using several or all of the ETFs. This would create exposure to hundreds of stocks. The fact is that modern portfolio theory has proven that the risk diversification from a 22 stock portfolio is the same as that from a 200 stock portfolio.

    Our ETFs are designed to own companies that have products on the market or in late stage clinical trials. The ETFs are organized by therapeutic area (cancer, metabolic disease, cardiology, infectious disease, etc.) to allow groupings that give investors exposure to innovation with mitigation of single-stock risk. The biotechnology industry is on the threshold of revolutionary innovation. However, it is very difficult to select the companies that will ultimately be successful. There probably are some folks who are capable of choosing the “winners” but for most this is too daunting a task. So a portfolio approach is the logical answer.

    Consider our Emerging Cancer ETF (HHJ). Last week, one of the constituent companies, Dendreon (DNDN), received preliminary FDA Advisory Board approval for its prostate cancer drug Provenge. The stock was about $5 on Thursday and closed this past Monday at $23. On Monday, another constituent, Ariad Pharmaceuticals, announced that its Phase III trial for a drug to treat metastatic sarcoma is being delayed. The stock declined by 15%. Other related companies in the portfolio have experienced sympathetic volatility, both positive and negative. In total, the Emerging Cancer ETF was up 17% for the year at the close of business on Monday. I don’t know if we are dealing with fear or simply the fact that this is a new way of investing with which the market needs to get comfortable.

    HealthShares are designed for long term investment but are quite suitable for short term trading. Dendreon had its FDA announcement last Wednesday and several owners of the stock were short the ETF going into the announcement (under the theory that bad news for DNDN would negatively impact the entire portfolio). But the primary purpose is for long term holders.

    Healthcare currently represents 16% of the U.S. economy and is expected to grow to 20% in just the next 8 years. The “baby boom” generation is now 42 to 60 years of age and numbers 78 million people. Primarily they are healthy and have not needed to rely on the healthcare industry. But that is about to a change in a big way as this group ages. This is happening at a time when healthcare is already in dire straits with 45 million people with no health insurance, costs growing at more than 8% per year and Medicaid and Medicare facing multi-trillion dollar deficits. At the same time, technology is advancing rapidly as we evolve from the classical pharmacology model to customized medicine (pharmacogenomics).

    But most of the mutual funds and ETFs that own pharmaceuticals and biotech are market cap weighted and therefore heavily skewed toward Big Pharma (Pfizer, Merck, Schering, Wyeth, etc.). So most of the opportunity is in biotech and most investment is going to the pharmaceutical companies. HealthShares affords investors the opportunity to align their investment dollars with the technologies that will be treating them in the future.     Reply
  • commenter
    Jeff Feldman
    Apr 10 12:08 PM
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Unfortunately, our prospectus is not yet filed and I am advised by counsel that I cannot comment on our carbon credit ETF. We expect the filing to take place this summer. Reply
  • commenter
    Richard Kang
    Apr 10 12:04 PM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Like David, I am also very interested in knowing more about your expansion to the carbon credit market. How will your ETF offering differ from direct exposure to this market? From what I know, the carbon trading market started out in the UK. Are you building your offering based on an existing template out of the UK ... in other words, is there plans for another ETF-like offering in the UK or elsewhere that you are using as a blueprint? When I first heard news of plans for this product, I assumed it was to be a US domiciled product and would be "first to market" globally (and thus, you're truly building this from scratch, not from an existing template). So, again, like David I'm interested in the structure and any unique tweaks found in what I think will be a most interesting offering.

    With regard to ETFs that provide exposure to specific states in the union ... I wonder who the market for this type of investment is. From an asset allocation and portfolio construction perspective, it doesn't seem like a family of ETFs that easily fits within most investors' existing framework. My first guess would be going after various types of institutional investors (more of the smaller ones, I think). I suppose if you go to a number of California (as an example) pensions, endowments, government related organization, etc. they might have some sort of guideline that promotes local investment and then they might go for a California ETF. But in today's environment, institutions are looking globally for diversification so I don't know how much interest they would have for this ... and this is especially true for the bigger pensions like CalPERS or CalSTRS. Just curious on how you plan on marketing these.

    Thanks for your time on this.     Reply
  • commenter
    Panskeptic
    Apr 10 11:40 AM
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Hi,

    As there is already at least one investment newsletter devoted to diabetes-related stocks, I was surprised not to find this special area among your healthcare offerings. Is there some reason you have avoided this supposed growth industry?     Reply
  • commenter
    Koby
    Menachemi
    Apr 10 11:05 AM
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    "Vertical Investing": This sounds like a fancy way to leverage ETFs by rotating into hot sectors. Is this really different from what's already out there? And why would someone who prides himself on being a stock picker want to use an ETF to capture a theme -- in healthcare, isn't it frequently "one winner take all"? Reply
  • commenter
    David
    Jackson
    Apr 10 10:59 AM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Many thanks for doing this Q&A, Jeff.

    The carbon emission credits ETF sounds interesting. Can you provide more information about it: what kind of structure will it have, when do you expect it to launch, and who do you think it will be used by and for what purposes?     Reply
  • commenter
    Jamie
    Rackover
    Apr 10 10:15 AM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    "XShares also partners with major institutions and index providers seeking to bring innovative Exchange Traded Funds to the market using its administrative platform."

    Xshares sounds like it's dead-set on becoming a turn-key ETF provider -- can you elaborate a bit more on what your plans are with this "administrative platform"?     Reply
  • commenter
    SeekingAlpha
    Editors
    Apr 10 09:56 AM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    I'm curious about liquidity issues. There are only a handful of ETFs that have real liquidity for institutional investors. Are Healthshares structured in such a way that they can scale for the professional investment community out there? Reply
  • commenter
    Roger
    Nusbaum
    Apr 10 09:47 AM
    My Website
    Interactive Q&A: Jeffrey L. Feldman, Creator of HealthShares and Founder and Chairman of XShares Group LLC [view article]
    Thank you for the time with this.

    Main stream media seems to favor picking on the narrowness of your product line in a way that borders on the peculiar. Is this simply a "fear of the unknown?" If so how do you reply?

    The more important thing to me would be do you view the various HealthShares funds as suited for longer term or did you envision a shorter term, trading mind set for individual investors or institutional investors to have success?

    Thank you,
    Roger Nusbaum     Reply
  • commenter
    David Banash
    Jan 24 01:45 PM
    Sixty-Seven ETF Filings For a New Year [view article]
    I believe Barclay's launched an ETN, exchange-traded note rather than an ETF. Reply
  • commenter
    Mike Schall
    Jan 22 04:31 PM
    Sixty-Seven ETF Filings For a New Year [view article]
    Barclays and Powershares were to launch India ETF's on Dec 20th. Nothing has happened. Both will not comment. Anyone know the status ? Reply
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