One thing that most energy analysts can probably agree on is that oil and natural gas reserves aren't getting any easier to discover, or extract from the earth. The obstacles are only increasing, from the pure location of the natural resource, to the political barriers being established to wean ourselves off of our fossil fuel addiction. However, another notion I think most energy analysts can agree on is that fossil fuels will continue to play a vital role in fueling global growth for decades to come.

With that in mind, we have developed a longer-term structural theme in the energy services sector for clients in our opportunistic growth portfolio. It recaptured my attention today due to a notable outperformance in energy services ETFs vs. the rest of the market. This was more than likely due to the affirmation of a positive outlook from the energy analysts over at

What the "tree huggers" don't realize, says 321energy.com founder Bob Moriarty, is that "the BMWs they drive to anti-Keystone protests need fuel." But the pipeline supporters who expect that fuel to come from American sources are just as delusional, Moriarty asserts in his scathing interview with The Energy Report. That's why he's looking beyond North America for lucrative oil plays. Find out which international producers may be ideally positioned to supply an energy-hungry U.S., and why Moriarty believes oil should be taxed "to the limit."

The Energy Report: In September 2012, you described $100/barrel [bbl] as the new normal. What market factors are behind today's price of $93/bbl?

Bob Moriarty: If the new normal is $100/bbl in any given market, the price should be as high as $115/bbl and as low as $85/bbl. The price will continue to swing around that. Even with the Bakken

The Energy sector ranks eighth out of the ten sectors as detailed in my Sector Rankings for ETFs and Mutual Funds report. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 18 ETFs and 73 mutual funds in the Energy sector as of April 23, 2013. Prior reports on the best & worst ETFs and mutual funds in every sector and style are here.

Figure 1 shows the five best and worst-rated ETFs and mutual funds in the sector. Not all Energy sector ETFs and mutual funds are created the same. The number of holdings varies widely (from 25 to 168), which creates drastically different investment implications and ratings. The best ETFs and mutual funds allocate more value to Attractive-or-better-rated stocks than the worst ETFs and mutual funds, which allocate too much value to Neutral-or-worse-rated stocks.

To identify the best and avoid the