XBI Outperforms FBIOX YTD
Many biotech stocks sold off today despite a strong market on weak volume as industrials and tech were up about 1.4%. Watch the ETFs compared to Fidelity FBIOX because the sector is more volatile this month.
Here is a chart comparing three ETFs:
XBI took off in January racing ahead of the others including FBIOX. The XBI says they are equal weight but does frequent re-balancing of positions. Among their top holdings are Intercept (ICPT), Aria (ARIA), Sangamo (SGMO),Intermune (ITMN), SynaGeva (GEVA), and NovaVax (NVAX) all of which are speculative stocks meaning hard to measure by financial metrics. Today XBI was down 1% after hours probably due to rebalancing with ICPT down 11.9%. NovaVax was down 2%. In contrast IBB was up 0.67% although off highs of the day. Fidelity Select Biotech Fund (FBIOX) was flat for the day.
So year to date FBIOX is up 17.5%, the IBB is up 12.5%, and the XBI still up 20.78% but the race is tightening.
We will do a complete review of all ETFs with Fidelity FBIOX at the end of March. Stay tuned.
The 2014 highs for all of these Funds and ETFs is late February.
Disclosure: long FBIOX, short XBI as a hedge only against a biotech portfolio.