Next week is one among the largest of the yr for health-care investors, and it has historically been a very good time to own ETFs that track the industry. The 2023 JPMorgan Health Care Conference is about to kick off next Monday in San Francisco. The event features keynote speeches from the CEOs of Sage Therapeutics and Eli Lilly , in addition to presentations from dozens of other health-care and biotech corporations. The conference typically sees many corporations preannounce quarterly results, revise outlooks and update investors about clinical trials. While those updates can break each ways for individual corporations, they’ve recently been excellent news for the sector as a complete. Over the past five years, a lot of the largest ETFs in health care and biotech have seen a median positive return in the primary half of January, when the conference is usually held. The three funds below — the SPDR S & P Biotech ETF (XBI) , the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV) and the iShares U.S. Medical Devices ETF (IHI) — have risen in 4 of the past five years through the first half of January. The one negative period for every was 2022, when the broader market was firstly of its decline into last yr’s bear market. The XBI fund has been the perfect performer on this sample, with a median return of three.4%. Health-care funds were down last yr but still easily outperformed the broader market, burnishing the sector’s popularity as a defensive haven. And the group stays a preferred area for investors in the brand new yr. Satori Fund founder Dan Niles, for instance, named the XLV fund as one among his top picks for the yr. Nevertheless, the widespread interest in health care could also be a reason for investors to be cautious. In line with Strategas Research, health care was the highest economic sector for equity ETF inflows in 2022, topping $13 billion, which might be an indication that the group is overstretched. “With the influence of the highest 5 S & P 500 weights dissipating (now below a 19% tally), Healthcare ETFs have seemingly been favored as a defensive counter to mega-cap Growth, posting record annual inflows. The sector’s S & P 500 weight also sits at a 50-year high of 16%. While we have seen the tactical flows backdrop way more aggressive (e.g. March 2020), we would at the least paint positioning as a risk for the approaching months,” Strategas ETF strategist Todd Sohn said in a note to clients. Investors must also take into accout that any broad index funds of their portfolios could have higher exposure to health care than lately. In line with a note from Goldman Sachs, health care is now the second-biggest weight within the S & P 500. Merck , Eli Lilly and AbbVie were a number of of the stocks with the largest positive contributions to the S & P 500 last yr, in accordance with Goldman.