Viva Vivus, But Not In ETFs (VVUS, IBB, PJP)

When stocks jump 100% in a single after-hours session as biotech firm Vivus VVUS saw its shares do on Wednesday, there are three logical reactions. Unadulterated joy if you were long the stock, tears if you were short it and finally, hope that if you don't own Vivus maybe it's a big part of an ETF you own. Alas, Vivus' big pop has us thinking this is one stock ETFs needed more of. Needed as in prior to Wednesday. Unfortunately, the quarter of dominant biotech ETFs we recently highlighted are all short on Vivus. Really short. Vivus is not found in the Market Vectors Biotech ETF BBH, the First Trust NYSE Arca Biotech Index Fund FBT or the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF XBI. The PowerShares Dynamic Biotech & Genome ETF PBE doesn't currently have room at its inn for Vivus, either, and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF IBB devotes all of 0.34% of its weight to the new darling of the biotech world. Good grief, even Netflix NFLX is more important in the land of ETFs. Kidding aside, there are precious few options for playing any more upside in Vivus via ETFs. Some Wednesday night research shows only the PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Portfolio PJP and the SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF XPH offer allocations of more than 2% to Vivus. In the case of the PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Portfolio, Vivus receives 2.66% of the ETF's weight making it the fund's nineteenth-largest holding...out of 30. The SPDR offering devotes 2.4% of its weight to Vivus rendering the stock the ETF's number 22 holding...out of 28. Combined, these two ETFs don't even have average daily volume of 135,000 shares. As its name implies, PJP is heavy on traditional pharma names like Pfizer PFE and Merck MRK. XPH has more of a biotech feel to it, but that ETF doesn't ignore blue-chip pharma names either. Translation: Vivus isn't likely to be a big catalyst for either fund today. The prescription? Try perusing IBB and XBI for the next Vivus and buy one of those funds on a pullback.