Rx for Your Portfolio: Part defense, part offense and all bargain, health care stocks should thrive

摘要

HEALTH CARE STOCKS cover a lot of bases. They're defensive because people always need medicine and medical care. They're fast-growing because innovative treatments are powering profits at several drug companies. And now, they're cheap, too. Scrutiny of the health care system is high, thanks in part to the upcoming 2020 presidential election, and that has weighed on the sector's stocks. From talk of Medicare for All to legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act to proposed drug-price regulations, "there's a lot of political noise," says Baron Health fund manager Neal Kaufman. As a result, shares in many good companies that were once expensive are now a bargain. "This is a great opportunity to buy stocks that are being punished unnecessarily," Kaufman says.