ETFs For BP's Shareholder Meeting

If you're looking for an event that has the potential to be, shall we say "entertaining" as far as shareholder meetings go, just look across the pond because BP's BP shareholders meeting kicks off on Thursday. Think this is a group of investors that are going to be in less-than-chipper moods? You're probably right. While BP isn't even close to being the world's largest oil company, it has commanded many more headlines in the past year than its larger rivals have and for all the wrong reasons. And it can be argued that the newsflow hasn't been much better in 2011. A controversial $16 billion share swap with Russia's OAO Rosneft looks like it could die before the end of this month and the Interior Department has made clear that it hasn't yet granted BP new permits to resume work in the Gulf of Mexico. In other words, CEO Bob Dudley is going to have some explaining to do come Thursday. With that, these are the ETFs you'll want to keep an eye as plays on the BP shareholder meeting. 1) SPDR S&P International Energy Sector ETF IPW: IPW is an alluring play not only because BP accounts for almost 9.1% of this ETF, but also because rivals Royal Dutch Shell RDS and Total TOT, Europe's largest and third-largest oil companies, respectively, account for almost 24% of IPW's weight. If BP has more bad news for investors later this week, Shell and Total could benefit under that scenario. 2) iShares S&P Global Energy Index Fund IXC: BP gets a weight of 4.76% here and this is another fund chock full of BP rivals, making it one to watch on Thursday. 3) iShares MSCI United Kingdom Index Fund EWU: BP gets a bigger allocation here at 5.6% than it gets in IXC, but EWU is obviously not a pure energy play. Another to consider is the Vanguard MSCI European ETF VGK where BP garners a weight of 6.81%, but IPW does stand out as perhaps as the most viable trade on this list. Either way, Thursday promises to be an interesting day for BP and a couple of the ETFs highlighted here.