This is shaping up as a strong year for energy stocks, if not yet for the energy industry.

We track three benchmarks: the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE: XLE) for the large-cap energy equities, the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSE: XOP) for the small caps and midcaps, and the Alerian MLP Index (AMZ) for its pipeline partnerships.

Each of these returned about 15% in the first half of 2016 with distributions, as energy prices bounced back and winter panic selling in the wake of last year’s heavy losses gave way to fear of missing out on the recovery.

Investments recommended here at any time during the first half of the year produced a more modest average return of 6.2%, without adjustments for the much shorter holding period of the securities disposed early in the half or recommended only recently.

That calculation quirk admittedly limited our paper losses last year, but looked less flattering against the backdrop of this spring’s broad energy rally.

Meanwhile the same shipping and solar recommendations that steadied last year’s performance turned into major drags as those sectors slumped.

On the plus side, the  ideas and stock picks we’ve emphasized this year have performed particularly well.

While not all of the Best Buy recommendations worked out, most did. And they tended to be the ones we highlighted early and often as the likely winners if we proved right about higher natural gas prices and a big comeback by MLPs.

Appalachian gas kings EQT (NYSE: EQT) and Cabot Oil & Gas (NYSE: COG), among our top three picks all year long, gained 49% and 46%, respectively, during the first half. Propane distributor AmeriGas Partners (NYSE: APU) returned 42%. Orphaned renewable energy yieldco TerraForm Power (NASDAQ: TERP) rallied 36% between mid-February and the end of June.        

The Conservative Portfolio returned a strong 21.1% on average from 16 recommendations, all of them made before this year. Only two of those picks lost ground in the first half while five returned at least 35%, led by the pipeline MLP general partner Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE), Canadian pipeline giant TransCanada (NYSE: TRP), Canadian gas producer Peyto (TSX: PEY, OTC: PEYUF)  and AmeriGas along with its general partner UGI (NYSE: UGI).

The portfolio returns below and in the tables that follow are from Jan. 1 or recommendation date for 2016 picks, through June 30 or sale date, and include distributions.

The Growth Portfolio was paced by EQT and Cabot, along with the refinery logistics MLP PBF Logistics Partners (NYSE: PBFX), which was added in January. But the widespread weakness of solar stocks cast a long shadow over First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR), while Global Partners (NYSE: GLP)  was forced to cut its distributions as its crude train runs from the Bakken to the East Coast began to cost it money instead of making it.

The real problem was the Aggressive Portfolio, where all those tankers spilled last year’s gains and then some. That offset a doubling in the share price of Rice Energy (NYSE: RICE) and the 60% gain by GasLog (NYSE: GLOG). And then SunEdison, along with a leveraged ETF withdrawn near the market lows and a stray refiner that somehow escaped last year’s purge, took care of whatever else went right.

And so long as we’re tallying regrets, let’s talk about another decision that dramatically affected first-half performance. On Jan. 28, with the portfolio reeling from a terrible start to the year for the market in general and the energy sector in particular, we dropped six oil and gas producers — three each from the Aggressive and Growth baskets — in each case locking in double-digit year-to-date losses.

We did that after an eight-day rally that had erased roughly half of the heavy losses energy stocks had suffered over the prior two weeks. Robert and I agreed that the relief rally was highly unlikely to hold.

He also reminded me, as he usually does, to take the long view. With West Texas Intermediate trading at $33 a barrel, we were punting a group that would be valued dramatically higher once crude prices bounced back.

But we both expected more pain for crude and energy stocks in the weeks ahead. Only a week earlier we’d publicized a plan to lower our model portfolios’ exposure to the smaller drillers into a strong bounce like the one we’d just had, which looked pretty well played out.

The relief rally crested on Jan. 29, and two weeks later that $33 crude was down to $26, with the likelihood of $10 a barrel the subject of straight-faced conjecture.

Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN), which we discarded when it fetched almost $27 a share, was 30% cheaper three weeks later. Energen (NYSE: EGN) was ditched near $34 and two weeks later was worth less than $23.

But of course when those lows came we were busy with other important things and other worthy ways to play the rebound. So Devon recently touched $40 before pulling back and Energen’s above $47. Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR), dropped on Feb. 1 on the same rationale at $20, declined a further 13% by Feb. 19 but is now at $45.

And the moral of that story is that it’s possible for a decision to curb risk to seem perfectly reasonable in the moment, wise some time later and idiotic with the benefit of longer hindsight. Many of the bearish fundamentals we saw sabotaging driller balance sheets back in January still pertain, even at $45 a barrel. But they also pertain at significantly higher equity prices than seemed possible in the depths of winter.

It’s fine to make a trade with the near term in mind. Just know why and, hopefully, have a sense of when the next course correction might be required. Because otherwise inertia is liable to take over, and it will ultimately take you somewhere you don’t want to go.

Since we dropped those drillers we’ve certainly found investments we consider much more promising. But not staying with them though all of the winter’s storms proved a permanent choice, and as it turned out the wrong one.