2018 Year-End Index Review Results for ETFx HealthTech™ Total Return Index

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- During the past year, the ETFx HealthTech™ Total Return Index (NYSE: HTXRI) generated a one-year total return of -1.25% in 2018. For comparison the MSCI ACWI Health Care Index ("MIWD0HC00PUS") generated a 2.22% return for 2018, while the Thomson Reuters Global Healthcare Total Return Index ("TRXFLDGLTUHLC") generated a return of 1.28%. In the US, in 2018 there were 36 ETFs tracking the healthcare sector and as a group their return average was -4.31% for the year.

Over the past three years, HTXRI generated an annualized total return of 13.36%, comparing favorably to MIWD0HC00PUS which generated an annualized return of 4.95% during the same period, while the TRXFLDGLTUHLC generated an annualized return of 9.93%.

Over the past ten years, HTXRI generated an annualized total return of 19.62%, comparing favorably to MIWD0HC00PUS which generated an annualized return of 12.46% during the same period, while the TRXFLDGLTUHLC generated an annualized return of 13.12%.

As of Friday, January 25^th HTXRI is up +11.3% year-to-date.

The ETFx HealthTech™ Index is a modified equal weighted index comprised of companies whose businesses stand to benefit substantially from the burgeoning global demand for advanced technologies in medicine and healthcare. The index is rebalanced each March, June, September and December.  The American Stock Exchange announced on December 20^th, 2005 that it had begun publishing the Palomar Healthcare Technology Index an index comprised of publicly traded companies engaged in Healthcare Informatics, Medical Instruments and Medical Appliances. Since summer of 2015, the index has been rebranded as the ETFx HealthTech™ Index.

Initially the index was developed to capture, in a unified manner, the investment potential associated with the substantial impact of technology on the allocation, delivery and management of healthcare services and products through companies engaged in Healthcare Informatics, Medical Instruments and Medical Appliances. ETFx Investment Partners has been an early evangelist about the long-term trend of the convergence of these technologies and the substantial benefits this convergence creates.

The ETFx HealthTech™ index is calculated by Refinitiv and disseminated by the New York Stock Exchange. It uses a modified equal weighting calculation methodology and a multi-factor approach for constituent selection.

Recently, FSITC "Global AI Precision Medicine Fund", offered by First Securities Investment Trust Co. Ltd. since May 2018, selected ETFx HealthTech™ as its benchmark. The Fund invests a wide range of companies whose principal activities stem from Genomics, Bioinformatics, Artificial Intelligence, IOT to facilitate healthcare industry with accurate and fast medical behavior, to health management, disease prevention, disease diagnosis, disease treatment, or after-illness care.

ETFx Investment Partners is an independent stock index developer providing thematic exposure and which specialize in themes rooted in the confluence of long-term forces interlinking population, water, energy and food. For more information, please reach out to Elias Azrak at info@ETFxIP.com.

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SOURCE ETFx Investment Partners