Designed to provide broad exposure to the Healthcare - Services segment of the equity market, the State Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF (XHS) is a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on September 28, 2011.
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 - Services is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 9, placing it in bottom 44%.
Index Details
The fund is sponsored by State Street Investment Management. It has amassed assets over $201.79 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Healthcare - Services segment of the equity market. XHS seeks to match the performance of the S&P Health Care Services Select Industry Index before fees and expenses.
The S&P Health Care Services Select Industry Index represents the health care sub-industry portion of the S&P Total Stock Market Index. The S&P TMI tracks all the U.S. common stocks listed on the NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ National Market and NASDAQ Global Select Market. The Health Care Index is a modified equal weight 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 0.35%, making it one of the least expensive products in the space.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.2%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
ETFs offer a diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many 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, Humana Inc (HUM) accounts for about 3.44% of total assets, followed by Centene Corp (CNC) and Clover Health Investments Co (CLOV).The top 10 holdings account for about 26.64% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
Year-to-date, the State Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF has added roughly 25.67% so far, and was up about 41.41% over the last 12 months (as of 07/15/2026). XHS has traded between $88 and $137.73 in this past 52-week period.
The ETF has a beta of 0.93 and standard deviation of 17.75% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 59 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.
Alternatives
State Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF carries a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Thus, XHS is a sufficient option for those seeking exposure to the Health Care ETFs area of the market. Investors might also want to consider some other ETF options in the space.
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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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State Street SPDR S&P Health Care Services ETF (XHS): ETF Research Reports
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).