In an abrupt departure from just over one month ago, XShares announced today that it will liquidate the four remaining HealthShares exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with a last day of trading on December 23 and dissolve the associated health fund management company by year-end. In late August, XShares announced that it would shutter 15 of the 19 HealthShares ETFs while lowering the expense ratios for the four remaining funds while making other changes such as increasing the number of holdings in each fund in an effort to attract more investors.

Below are the four ETFs in the HealthShares line-up, along with the net assets, number of securities in each fund, and the trailing 12-month (ttm) performance:

HealthShares Cancer (HHK) – $7.1M net assets, 32 holdings, -25% ttm
HealthShares European Drugs (HRJ) – $1.5M net assets, 29 holdings, -35% ttm
HealthShares Diagnostics (HHD) – $12M net assets, 35 holdings, -38% ttm
HealthShares Drug Discovery Tools (HHV) – $6.4M net assets, 30 holdings, -32% ttm

Healthcare Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV) -30% over $2B net assets over 50 holdings

At the time of the initial HealthShares overhaul in late summer, XShares said it was committed to bringing new health ETFs to the market in the coming months such as Asian Health and others already registered with the SEC. However, interim CEO Joseph Schocken stated that tough market conditions have made it difficult for the funds to attract investor assets so XShares will now focus on bringing new funds related to the environment and infrastructure to the market in 2009 – such as its AirShares commodity pool fund in registration to compete with the iShares Global Carbon ETN (GRN).

XShares is now down to one remaining family of ETFs, which are target-date funds under the TDX Independence name.