New York (HedgeCoVest.Com) – After setting the world on fire in the first quarter, the healthcare sector and the biotech sub-sector both took a little breather in April. During the first quarter, the Healthcare Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLV) surged 6.32% and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (NYSE: IBB) soared to a gain of 13.21%. Then the two ETFs took a breather in April with the XLV losing 1.09% and the IBB losing 2.84%. The two sector funds came back to life in May with the XLV gaining 4.51% and the IBB gaining 9.40%. Of the ten main sectors, the Healthcare sector was the top performing sector for the month based on the performance of the select sector SPDR funds.

The S&P 500 SPDR (NYSE: SPY) gained 1.05% for the month, and with that we see that only four of the sector ETFs were able to beat the performance of the index. The Energy sector dropped sharply after rising sharply from mid-January through the end of April, but the XLE lost 5.19% on the month and was the only one of the sector SPDRs to lose ground.

Turning our attention to the models on the HedgeCoVest platform, a mock portfolio invested in all of the single-strategy models would have gained 0.34% during the month while a portfolio invested in the top 10 models would have gained 0.60% and one invested in the top five models would have gained 1.18%.

Among the composite models, the HedgeCoVest Basic Materials Long/Short model was the top performing model for the month with a gain of 2.81% while the HedgeCoVest Industrial Long-Only model was the second best performing model with a gain of 2.29%.

A mock portfolio invested in the five long-only models would have gained 0.51% in May while one constructed of the five long/short models would have produced a gain of 0.52%. A portfolio that was equally invested in the four short-only models would have produced a loss of -0.05%.