ETF comparison
VHT vs XLV
Both Healthcare.
Vanguard Health Care Index Fund ETF Shares · State Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF
Holdings overlap
59 positions appear in both funds. Buying equal dollars of VHT and XLV would leave roughly 85.8% of each dollar exposed to the same underlying securities.
Side by side
Sub-score comparison
Tracking quality isn't part of the composite — see what we don't score for why.
Cost difference
XLV is 1 bps cheaper than VHT. On a $100,000 position that's about $10/yr more in fees for VHT.
Fee figure is the annual expense charged on $100,000. To see how the gap compounds over a multi-decade holding period, open the cost calculator pre-filled with VHT vs XLV.
Top shared holdings
59 shared in total| # | Holding | In VHT | In XLV | Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eli Lilly & Co | 12.54% | 13.74% | 12.54% |
| 2 | Johnson & Johnson | 8.74% | 11.10% | 8.74% |
| 3 | AbbVie Inc | 6.08% | 7.25% | 6.08% |
| 4 | Merck & Co Inc | 4.58% | 5.63% | 4.58% |
| 5 | UnitedHealth Group Inc | 3.94% | 4.62% | 3.94% |
| 6 | Amgen Inc | 3.10% | 3.57% | 3.10% |
| 7 | Abbott Laboratories | 3.00% | 3.37% | 3.00% |
| 8 | Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc | 2.92% | 3.48% | 2.92% |
| 9 | Gilead Sciences Inc | 2.74% | 3.26% | 2.74% |
| 10 | Intuitive Surgical Inc | 2.68% | 3.09% | 2.68% |
| 11 | Pfizer Inc | 2.33% | 3.01% | 2.33% |
| 12 | Danaher Corp | 2.01% | 2.25% | 2.01% |
Only in VHT
349 total- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc 0.65%
- Insmed Inc 0.47%
- Veeva Systems Inc 0.42%
- Natera Inc 0.40%
- United Therapeutics Corp 0.32%
- Tenet Healthcare Corp 0.31%
- Illumina Inc 0.31%
- Exact Sciences Corp 0.29%
- REVOLUTION Medicines Inc 0.21%
- Elanco Animal Health Inc 0.19%
Only in XLV
1 total- State Street Global Advisors 0.01%
Open VHT or XLV at a brokerage
Both funds trade commission-free at major US brokerages.
Affiliate links — opening an account through these earns PlainIndex a one-time referral. Scoring is computed before any affiliate consideration; see our methodology and funding disclosure.
Holdings overlap is the sum of min(weight_a, weight_b) over positions
matched on ISIN (CUSIP fallback). Methodology: see
/methodology/.
Comparing two funds doesn't endorse swapping one for the other. Tax-lot history, account type, and personal goals matter — PlainIndex publishes data and methodology, not investment advice.