Health Care Slips As Risk Aversion Weighs On Biotech - Health Care Roundup

Health-care companies fell as a spike in Treasury yields hit biotechnology shares.

During the 2020 stock-market recovery, investors piled into highly speculative areas such as technology and biotech because rock-bottom Treasury yields pushed people into the riskiest sectors.

Now, however, the increase in Treasury yields has caused a broad re-evaluation of risk in portfolios, weighing on biotech shares and boosting other areas of health-care sector, such as health insurers and Big Pharma.

The iShares Nasdaq Biotech exchange-traded fund, a basket of big biotech companies, lost almost 2% of its value, even as Merck, UnitedHealth Group and other big health-care stocks gained.

Write to Rob Curran at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-08-21 1701ET