We’ve remained bearish on US natural-gas prices for the past several years, asserting that any short-term rallies induced by a cold winter would fail when prices approach $4 to $5 per million British thermal units.

The floor for the commodity sits around $2 per million British thermal units, though elevated inventories and production levels suggest Henry Hub prices could fall below this threshold this winter.

Nothing on the horizon suggests that US natural-gas prices will escape this trading range, while the near-term risks skew decidedly to the downside.

We expect front-month prices at the Henry Hub, the official delivery point for natural-gas futures that trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange, to struggle to top $3 per million British thermal units in 2016. The thermal fuel could also tumble to $1 per million British thermal units or less if a warm winter swells the volume of natural gas in storage.

In this issue, we delve into a handful of popular gas-focused producers, but opt to stand aside on even our favorite names for now. However, a buying opportunity could emerge in coming months if this winter ends up being warmer than usual.

We’re more bullish on midstream names that stand to benefit from growing demand for US natural gas at home and in Mexico.

Market pundits and talking heads who use the 2008-09 collapse in energy prices and related stocks as an analogue for the current downturn fail to distinguish between a demand-driven correction and a longer-lived one where the imbalance occurs on the supply side.

Whereas the financial crisis and Great Recession sapped demand, the severe downdraft in oil prices that began in the second half of 2015 reflects an upsurge in non-OPEC production, driven primarily by the North American onshore market.

Investors who followed our lead and bought the dip in energy stocks in late 2008 and early 2009 booked huge gains, with the S&P 500 Energy Index soaring almost 40 percent from the end of 2008 to March 2010.

However, those who fell prey to recency bias—the tendency for humans to use patterns from the proximate past to predict the future—and bought energy stocks in anticipation of a V-shaped recovery in oil prices haven’t fared well this time around.

Based on our fundamental analysis of the oil market and lessons from the 1980s and 1990s, we repeatedly warned readers to resist the urge to buy energy equities that looked cheap on traditional valuation metrics. We underscored this risk during the energy sector’s spring relief rally, which far too many investors misinterpreted as an all-clear signal.

After an almost 18-month bear market in energy prices and related stocks, we appear to be on the verge of an epic buying opportunity for a select group of upstream names that have the balance sheet and asset base to win market share and grow in an environment where prices remain lower for longer.

Our strategy, which we outlined in the Sept. 26 issue of Energy & Income Advisor, is based on lessons from the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Elevated US oil inventories, coupled with reduced demand during refinery turnarounds this fall and in early 2016, increase the likelihood of another selloff in crude-oil prices even though domestic output has started to roll over.

To take advantage of this coming buying opportunity, we’ve narrowed the universe to our top picks and setting dream buy prices for these stocks. Note that our strategy doesn’t aim to pick a bottom for these equities; rather, our goal is to identify valuations that represent good entry points.