An Ortho Stock Index Now Trading
BY JOHN MCCORMICK, JULY 23, 2007
Every so often we get the question at the trade shows - how do I buy all of the ortho stocks at once? In the past, our only answer was you had to buy representative shares of every ortho stock on a market capitalization weighted basis or some such thing. In other words... don't do this at home. Until now. Ten days ago an "exchange traded fund" - sometimes called an ETF - dedicated to orthopedics with the ticker symbol HHP began trading allowing the public investor to buy into ortho broadly no fuss no muss.
An ETF is like a mutual fund, except that it trades on the open market and tracks an index such as the S&P500. The logical extension is that all types of stocks can be grouped together to create an ETF. In fact, there are ETFs for Hong Kong, technology, cancer biotech and now... orthopedics. This new orthopedics ETF, started by HealthShares is comprised of some very familiar names such as Zimmer, Kyphon and Lifecell.
It's long overdue that Wall Street recognize the importance of the industry and the creation of an ortho-specific ETF is clear-cut evidence that orthopedics is a distinct and credible investable sector in healthcare such as cardio, cancer biotech or diagnostics.
