The excitement around weight loss drugs has created some big winners and losers in the stock market, but playing the trend with ETFs can be tricky. Recent medical breakthroughs have a type of treatment developed for diabetes, sometimes referred to as GLP-1 drugs, can also be effective in helping users lose weight . Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, explained in a note to clients Tuesday that this could have a wide ranging impact on the demand for different consumer products. “The reason these GLP-1 drugs have had such a varied and broad impact on different parts of the market can be summed up by this statement: There are expectations that these GLP-1 drugs could result in substantially less food consumption across the country in the coming years,” Essaye said. While the market could shift in the coming years, the current GLP-1 excitement is centered around two companies and their brands: Ely Lilly ‘s Mounjaro and Zepbound , and Novo Nordisk ‘s Ozempic and Wegovy. With just two dominant players, the holdings and weightings of sector ETFs become even more important. Some of the biggest health care sector funds don’t even include Novo Nordisk, which is based in Europe. Essaye highlighted the VanEck Pharmaceutical ETF (PPH) as the top choice in the space — even though it has underperformed the broader market this year with a total return of just over 3% — because it has high exposure to both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. PPH YTD mountain PPH has high exposure to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, but has underperformed the broader market so far this year. “Bottom line, PPH provides broad pharma exposure but also provides relatively large allocations to the two market leaders in the GLP-1 space,” Essaye said. The PPH has about $400 million in assets and an expense ratio of 0.36%. On the other hand, the concern about the impact of the drugs has caused broad weakness in stocks tied to categories like snack foods. One fund that appears to be getting hit by the trend is Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLP) . The XLP has a total return of negative 3.7% year to date. “Because food companies are a large part of Consumer Staples ETFs, their poor performance has negatively impacted the returns of XLP and other consumer staples funds,” Essaye said. The XLP has about $15 billion in assets, and an expense ratio of 0.1%. Investors who use dividend focused ETFs could also be at risk could also be getting hurt by the trend, because consumer staples stocks are often dividend payers.
