Energy has a long history of marching to its own drummer. Sometimes, that makes things difficult for investors.

That’s not to say the energy sector is immune from stock market cycles, or even this autumn’s stepped up volatility. But it’s hard to argue that best in class energy stocks aren’t trading far closer to bear market bottoms than bull market highs.

This issue’s Energy & Income Advisor roundtable takes a deep dive into the broad market’s impact on the energy sector and what we expect to see the rest of this year.

In the previous issue, Roger and I shared a round table with Energy and Income Advisor readers, synthesizing discussions we’ve had on a wide range of “Big Picture” topics, including developments in the still red-hot Permian Basin, the latest on regulatory headwinds and trends and our key takeaways from Q2 earnings, including potential MLP to corporation conversions.

Subsequently, we updated our comments, numbers and advice on each of the companies tracked in our three coverage universes, which are explored in tabular form under the “Portfolios” tab on the EIA website:

• EIA Producers and Drillers
• MLP and Midstream
• International Coverage Universe

This issue, we’re putting it all together in a comprehensive discussion of strategy, including the upcoming simplification merger of the current three EIA Portfolios into one Active Portfolio.

We eagerly anticipate earnings results from diversified service giants Halliburton and Schlumberger each quarter because no companies have a better big picture 30,000-foot view of industry conditions and trends in all major oil and gas-producing regions of the world.

In fact, careful analysis of comments and industry “read-through” from these two companies were a major factor in our 2014 call for a major decline in oil prices. In the most recent quarter, comments on the conference calls for both companies have important implications both for existing Focus List recommendations and a new addition to our Focus List and Active Portfolio.