The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that there is an emerging trend in both Canada and the United States worth highlighting: the return of the energy sector as a top performer. Guest columnist Marius Jongstra writes that after a brief hiatus, energy stocks are once again screening positively as an area that warrants investors' attention, even if our views toward the broader headline indexes remain far from constructive. What is driving this assessment is one simple observation: The sector is among the most unloved in both the U.S. and Canada. As a result, concerns of overvaluation that are front and centre for the broader market are not present in the energy sector. It does not take much to move fund flows back into the sector when pessimism is rampant among investors, especially over a longer-term horizon. That these companies have evolved their capital discipline over the years, offering higher dividends and buybacks as a result, also means investors are paid to wait with all-in yields (dividends plus buybacks) of 5.2 per cent in Canada and 6.8 per cent in the U.S., which compare with 3.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent for the S&P/TSX Composite Index and S&P 500, respectively, more broadly.