Q4 earnings reporting season is moving into high gear. And so far, Energy and Income Advisor recommendations are holding their own despite volatile oil and gas prices, reduced industry-wide spending and generally hostile capital markets.

The bad news is with coronavirus fears pressuring global oil prices, the market isn’t paying much attention to the numbers. Nor do investors appear to be giving a lot of credence to management guidance for 2020 that’s considerably more conservative and therefore achievable, as fears of a global economic slide percolate.

We’re coming to the end of 2019. The good news is, in stark contrast to a year ago, the wind is very much at our back for our energy stocks.

Performance of our Actively Managed Portfolio holdings wasn’t universally positive this year. But as we report in this issue’s Portfolio discussion, the winners appear to have more than offset the notable losers. And despite launching our High Yield Energy List with remarkably poor timing, even the most damaged companies over the year’s first 11 months appear to be finishing strong, with the expectation of better times in 2020.

This is the second of three issues this month highlighting our outlook for what we believe will be a very strong year for energy in 2020. The focus of the first was on the macro, under the title “Oil: Our 2020 Outlook.”

We strongly encourage everyone to read that feature article first, as it explains what we see happening for the commodity and thereby sets the table for what comes next. The feature piece this time is in a discussion format where we highlight our sector-by-sector view for energy stocks, from producers and midstreams to service companies and refiners.

The final issue of this year focuses on individual recommendations and our portfolio strategy. It’s our “game plan” for taking advantage of what we believe will be a strong year for energy stocks in general, but with timing of rallies likely to vary sharply by sector.

Q3 results and guidance updates are all in for the Actively Managed Portfolio and High Yield Energy List, as well as for most of our coverage universes.

We’re still assessing how results affect our company-by-company outlook for the rest of the year and into 2020. But there are already a few clear takeaways.

First, our recommendations’ Q3 numbers were quite solid, including companies whose shares have taken hard hits lately. And they support guidance for capital spending, distribution policies and balance sheet strength.

That’s by no means true of every energy company we track, and there are plenty of disaster stories shaping up in our coverage universes. But our long-standing thesis is still very much intact: This is a much more sustainable and resilient industry than it was five years ago at the start of the decline.