After Republican Donald Trump’s presidential-election victory, the healthcare sector trailed the pack as the wider market rallied. Heated campaign rhetoric from Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton made investors wary that Washington would tamp down drug prices and take other steps to radically remake the healthcare marketplace.
Now, such fears are fading, and health stocks are making up for lost time. The Russell 2000 Health Care Index has gained 4.6% and the Standard & Poor’s Health Care Index has gained 2.2% since last Tuesday. The jump means the sector has erased the performance gap with the broader market, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Reports in recent days have suggested that an anticipated executive order from Trump on drug prices will be industry-friendly. And the Senate’s version of legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, made public this week, doesn’t go as far as some feared in making changes to current law, analysts said. That’s given some investors the green light.
“I have enough clarity now to invest,” said Jeff Jonas, a portfolio manager at Gabelli & Co, managing about $600mn in healthcare assets. “What’s become clear is that we’re going to be sticking with something close to the status quo.
The amount of change that the Senate or House bill was proposing is nothing compared to what we went through six or seven years ago when ACA was passed.”
Gabelli took advantage of a health selloff earlier this year, when Trump threatened to have the government negotiate drug costs, to buy shares of Shire, Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Jonas said. The firm’s Healthcare & Wellness fund, with $294mn in assets, had a total return of 6.2% in the first quarter, compared with 8.4% for the S&P 500 health index, according to the fund’s most recent quarterly report.
Part of the jump is being driven by traders trying to stay ahead of a high-flying stock market – the S&P 500 index is up 8.9% so far this year – by finding undervalued companies and sectors that may still have room to run, a strategy known as sector rotation.
The recent health rally “smells more like a risk-on trade as the sector has been technically beaten down,” said Benjamin Dunn, president of Alpha Theory, which works with hedge funds overseeing about $6bn.
“It’s an obvious place to put some capital to work versus places like tech that have recently run.” Dunn said that so much money had been poured into tech stocks during the market’s run-up that biotechnology and healthcare are natural areas to chase.
Among the biggest beneficiaries of investors’ renewed interest in healthcare have been exchange-traded funds. Over the past three days, investors piled more than $700mn into the Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF, known as the IBB, the most since the aftermath of November’s election.
Outstanding shares for the IBB have jumped about 8% in the past three days, the strongest three-day span since November.
Despite the strength of recent days, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index is still off 20% from its July 2015 peak.
While Trump is yet to issue his drug-prices order and the Senate’s health legislation faces a tough road to passage, given opposition from key Republicans, some investors also point to signs that the Food and Drug Administration will give new drugs a smoother, faster path to market. The FDA has approved 23 drugs so far this year – more than in all of 2016.
“What people forget is the FDA is open for business, and the industry is productive in its research and development efforts,” said Marshall Gordon, an investor with Clearbridge Investments. He said that managed care, medical technology and biotech all represent growth areas within healthcare.
