TheStreet.com Ratings: Week's Best, Worst Resource Funds

What can you buy with $10.49 billion in quarterly profits? Well, Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote) bought $7 billion of its own stock, a fresh new high in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a boatload of oil services.

The world's biggest oil company posted the second largest quarterly profit this week, topped only by itself with $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005. Even with the slide in oil prices from the August high of $78.75 per barrel to this week's low of $56.56, Exxon averaged a domestic selling price of $62.07 per barrel.

The price of oil has leveled off from its summer highs, but this was a volatile week amid earnings from several major energy firms, OPEC announcements of production cutbacks and Friday's news of naval forces rushing to Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil terminal to head off a terrorist threat.

So how did energy-sector funds do amid all the drama? Pretty well, actually. For the week ending Oct. 26, the energy & natural resource funds we rate advanced an average of 2.15%.

The best of the best this week is the Oil Service HOLDRS (OIH Quote). This exchange-traded fund jumped nearly 4%. The dearth of 2006 hurricanes helped one of its largest holdings, Halliburton (HAL Quote), which reported third-quarter 2006 earnings that beat estimates and grew 46.3% over the same quarter last year. In the quarter, the company collected $1.2 billion in sales for services and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Halliburton's shares are up more than 10% for the week ended Thursday and are poised to have their best week since July 22, 2005, which followed the release of huge second-quarter 2005 earnings.

Along with Halliburton, funds holding the other major oil services companies, such as Ensco International (ESV Quote), up 8.5% for the week, Tidewater (TDW Quote), up 6.2%, and Rowan Companies (RDC Quote), up 5.9%, did well.

Top-Performing Energy/Natural Resource Sector Funds Oil services pumped out gains
Ticker	Fund	Rating	Fund Type	1 Week Total Return
OIH	HOLDRS Oil Services	B	ETF	3.98%
FEN	First Trust Energy Income&Growth	D+	Closed- End	3.61%
ENPSX	ProFunds-Oil & Gas UltraSector Svc	C	Open- End	3.54%
PSPFX	US Global Inv Global Resources	C	Open- End	3.30%
SSGRX	BlackRock Global Resources Inv A	C-	Open- End	3.30%
RYVCX	Rydex Series- Energy Services C	C	Open- End	3.24%
FSESX	Fidelity Select Energy Services	C	Open- End	3.15%
GHAAX	Van Eck Global Hard Assets A	B	Open- End	3.04%
ICENX	ICON Energy	C+	Open- End	3.00%
FNRAX	Franklin Natural Resources Adv	C+	Open- End	2.78%
Source: TheStreet.com Ratings

At the other end of the spectrum, funds focused on alternative-energy plays struggled this week. The fortunes of alternative-energy companies rise and fall with the price of oil. As crude becomes cheaper, companies such as Ballard Power Systems (BLDP Quote) and Plug Power (PLUG Quote) are seen as less economically viable.

Both of these companies are holdings of the PowerShares Wilder Clean Energy (PBW Quote) ETF and the (FSLEX Quote)Fidelity Select Environmental Portfolio, two of the worst-performing funds this week in our energy/natural-resource funds universe.

Worst-Performing Energy/Natural Resource Sector Funds Not the week for tree huggers
Ticker	Fund	Rating	Fund Type	1 Week Total Return
KYE	Kayne Anderson Energy Tot Ret	C	Closed-End	-0.33%
FSPFX	Fidelity Select Paper/ Forest Products	E	Open- End	-0.19%
QRABX	Oppenheimer Real Asset B	E-	Open- End	0.15%
TYG	Tortoise Energy Infrastr Corp	B-	Closed-End	0.25%
KYN	Kayne Anderson MLP	C+	Closed- End	0.74%
BGR	BlackRock Global Energy & Resources	E+	Closed- End	0.78%
PBW	PowerShares Wilder Clean Energy	E-	ETF	1.12%
FMO	Fiduciary/ Claymore MLP Opp	D	Closed- End	1.13%
IENAX	AIM Energy A	B+	Open- End	1.32%
FSLEX	Fidelity Select Environmental Portfolio	D-	Open- End	1.62%
Source: TheStreet.com Ratings

Investors in the (FSPFX Quote)Fidelity Select Paper/Forest Products Portfolio also found themselves in the wrong corner of the natural-resource market this week. The fund's position in Weyerhaeuser (WY Quote), a company that grows & harvests timber, was trimmed by 1.3%. Another large holding, Smurfit-Stone Container (SSCC Quote), gave back 5.2% over the same period when the company predicted a weaker fourth quarter due to seasonally higher energy costs and mill maintenance.

While not as volatile as the technology sector highlighted in last week's column, the energy sector has been riding the rollercoaster of volatility that drives down risk-adjusted returns. As a result, only two funds in our worst-performer table and two from our best-performer table earned ratings of B- or higher.