Despite a lackluster year for the energy sector, earnings boosted stocks last week. Exxon Mobil shares climbed Thursday after the company said its second-quarter profits climbed 91% with help from higher commodities prices and improved refining margins. Chevron and ConocoPhillips also gained ground last week after reporting earnings above analysts second-quarter estimates.

Still, the sector remains in a funk. The Philadelphia Oil Services Sector index is down 6.5% for the year. And industry albatross BP is still trading about 38% below its high for the last 52 weeks, as investors swallow the largest oil spill in history.

Now, value investors may be looking to make a play on the recent weakness in energy, particularly after the large-caps have shown they can turn a profit even as the economy slows. The trick is finding the right vehicle.

Many mutual funds tied to the sector underperformed their benchmarks. Analysts have criticized some funds for poor choices but now say that it s worth waiting for a few laggards to rebound.

This week SmartMoney looked at funds that have had the least success in energy. The screen looked for funds that had at least 50% allocation in energy according to Morningstar s categories, narrowing it to 162 funds and share classes. We then narrowed the field to those that performed in the lowest 15% of their category for this year and were in the lowest quartile over the last three year period. We were left with five.

Fidelity Select Natural Gas made the list. The fund's strict mandate makes it an aggressive option, and new management intends to maintain a more concentrated portfolio than the last regime, according to Morningstar analyst Jonathan Rahbar. The fund s new manager plans to focus on quality natural gas operators with strong returns on capital that have grown faster than their competitors by keeping costs low, according to the Morningstar report.

One recent move was to drop Chesapeake Energy, the fund s former top holding, to a position small enough that keeps it out of the top ten. EOG Resources is now the fund s largest holding. Chesapeake is down 17.9%, while EOG is up 3.8% so far this year.

The Fidelity fund s fortunes typically rise and fall with natural gas prices, and the correlations between the fund and other more diversified energy funds are also very close, but its returns over short and longer periods fail to keep pace with the competition, says Rahbar. More proven, diversified options would better serve energy hungry investors.

Ivy Global Natural Resources A, the largest fund by assets in the natural-resources category, has better prospects than recent returns might suggest, according to Morningstar analyst Harry Milling. Like its peers, the fund usually invests more than half of its assets in the energy sector, but it s more methodical and has greater analytical resources, which management is adept at using, Milling says.

The fund positions holdings based on their relationship to economic and business cycle trends. The top 10 to 20 holdings include the most promising two-year prospects based on these trends, and also are low-cost producers with high returns on capital, Milling says. In general, the manager Fred Sturm looks for out-of-favor stocks, and recently added to stocks of oil drillers, which have been punished by the Gulf oil spill. The contrarian tack can hit the fund's returns when the market is risk-averse, as was the case in 2008 and again in 2010, writes Milling. For the patient, however, this strategy has paid off in the long term.

The Criteria: Unlike our typical screens, the funds on the table had no minimum investment, size or load criteria. They had at least 50% allocation in Morningstar s energy category. And their performance track records in the lowest 15% for their category year to date and in the lowest quartile over the trailing three-year time period.