It’s impossible to review all of our portfolio holdings’ recent quarterly results, as I just did, and not come away impressed with the way the industry is managing rapid growth with all its attendant risks and dislocations. After tallying the abundant cash flow, it’s hard not to get excited about the value proposition many of these businesses still offer.

By the same token, it’s hard to look at April’s big gains and not worry at least a little bit about what happens during the seasonal post-distribution lull, now that expectations have been raised and appetites whetted.

But after meeting some of our subscribers recently it’s easy to predict that experienced investors have not been and will not get carried away by this bit of good fortune. Memories of leaner times are too fresh and loss aversion too high.

But, as this month’s In Focus feature summarizing my presentation at the Investing Daily Summit notes, MLPs have been delivering superior returns for a long time, and those piling on the bandwagon late have become increasingly willing to pay up for that performance record and the relatively high tax-deferred yield. When the domestic energy sector’s growth wanes again, those lofty midstream cash flow multiples will almost certainly contract. On the other hand, that turning point still seems years away, and for the moment the performance chase is clearly on.

We’re certainly not complaining about our portfolio recommendations’ 10.2 percent aggregate year-to-date gain (not counting the distributions) through May 7. It was meaningfully above the 1.6 percent for the S&P 500, 6.3 percent for the Alerian MLP Index and 8 percent for the Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLE) as of that date. More hearteningly still, the list of nine Best Buys we ranked two months ago is now up more than 20 percent on average in 2014, and shows no signs of slowing down. See Best Buys for a detailed breakdown of how our top recommendations have fared, along with a new portfolio addition that has quickly built up plenty of its own momentum.

Robert Rapier’s Sector Spotlight this month sizes up the red-hot MLP subsector of compression, proppant supply and other specialized services related to hydraulic fracturing.

Finally, Portfolio Update has the latest quarterly numbers from our portfolio picks, many of which reported them last week. Based on their results, we’ve downgraded Crestwood Midstream Partners (NYSE: CMLP) to a Hold while significantly raising the target on Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) to make it a Buy at current levels.

We’re also sticking with a couple of recent underachievers. We believe they will be long-term winners too. But for now it’s enough that they’re inexpensive.