XLV: State Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF

What does XLV hold?#

This fund owns stocks of the health care companies in the S&P 500, such as drug makers, medical device makers and health insurers. It gives investors one ticker for that whole group. Its value goes up and down with that one part of the stock market.

It tracks the Health Care Select Sector Index. It had 61 holdings as of October 15, 2026, according to SPDR (State Street).

What is the XLV expense ratio?#

XLV charges 0.08% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.08% fee comes to about $8 a year.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

How has XLV done since 1998?#

From December 1998 to October 2026, XLV returned about 8.9% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $106,117 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

Prices through October 16, 2026. Figures use daily closing prices adjusted for splits, with dividends reinvested. They do not include taxes or the cost of buying and selling. Past results do not tell you what will happen next.

XLV returns by year#

What was XLV’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. XLV’s worst fall was −39.2%, from December 10, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on April 26, 2011.

The chart shows how far below its last high the fund was on each day. Big drops are normal for some funds. They matter because selling during a drop locks in the loss.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold XLV?#

One classic strategy holds XLV at least some of the time. Each is a set of written rules you can open, test and copy.

• Faber sector rotation (the three strongest US sectors), by Mebane Faber, 2010

How does XLV compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for XLV:

• VHT: Vanguard Health Care ETF, 0.09% a year
• XLP: State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF, 0.08% a year
• VDC: Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF, 0.09% a year
• QUAL: iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF, 0.15% a year

See all 5 XLV alternatives, compared on the same dates as XLV.

Test XLV in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add XLV, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for XLV. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns.

Fund facts come from SPDR (State Street). We checked them on October 16, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.