Two ETFs to Avoid the Health Care Fallout

This means that the president's chances of pushing through another hotly contested topic on the legislative agenda, financial reform, are reduced. The financial sector will benefit from Congress's decision on health care and ETFs like Financials SPDR (XLF) and iShares Dow Jones U.S. Financial Sector Index ETF (IYF), with a large stake in big financial firms such as Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC), J.P. Morgan (JPM) or Citigroup (C), could see a boost.

However, this will be a trend that will materialize in the mid- to long-term.

In the short run, the market will interpret the passage of the health care bill as a sign that Obama's political maneuvering powers are in their prime and that he will be able to ram his favored legislation through before mid-term elections. In this case, XLF, and IYF will face downward pressure. The regional bank ETFs will do better because they are not a target of reform.

But as November draws closer, if financial reform is not well on its way to being passed, I expect that the big financials will begin to outperform as the market starts to take into account a Republican victory in the mid-term elections.

-- Written by Don Dion in Williamstown, Mass.

At the time of publication, Dion is long iShares Dow Jones U.S. Pharmaceuticals.

Don Dion is president and founder of Dion Money Management, a fee-based investment advisory firm to affluent individuals, families and nonprofit organizations, where he is responsible for setting investment policy, creating custom portfolios and overseeing the performance of client accounts. Founded in 1996 and based in Williamstown, Mass., Dion Money Management manages assets for clients in 49 states and 11 countries. Dion is a licensed attorney in Massachusetts and Maine and has more than 25 years' experience working in the financial markets, having founded and run two publicly traded companies before establishing Dion Money Management.

Dion also is publisher of the Fidelity Independent Adviser family of newsletters, which provides to a broad range of investors his commentary on the financial markets, with a specific emphasis on mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. With more than 100,000 subscribers in the U.S. and 29 other countries, Fidelity Independent Adviser publishes six monthly newsletters and three weekly newsletters. Its flagship publication, Fidelity Independent Adviser, has been published monthly for 11 years and reaches 40,000 subscribers.

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