3 Overlooked Energy ETFs Delivering Strong Returns and Income

Key Points

• Midstream energy companies offer stable, toll-road-like cash flow and strong dividends, making them attractive for investors seeking resilience and income.
• AMLP, ENFR, and MLPX provide different ways to access midstream MLPs and infrastructure firms, varying in cost, diversification, and liquidity.
• All three ETFs have outperformed the S&P 500 in 2026 while offering dividend yields ranging from about 3.9% to 7.5%.

Midstream energy firms—those companies overseeing the transportation, storage, and some processing of oil and gas—remain an essential but often overlooked part of the energy ecosystem. Because these companies often operate like toll roads, in that they get paid whenever energy moves through their system, they can be vital sources of stability for investors.

At the same time, their essential nature (oil and gas wouldn't reach refineries without them) means this category of company is likely to weather any number of market storms.

The other benefits of midstream firms, including their propensity for strong dividends, stable cash flow, ability to protect against inflation, and high barriers to entry that help ensure controlled competition, make these companies attractive for many different types of portfolios. Investors can build exposure to midstream firms easily with the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) below.

A Narrow MLP Fund With Impressive Results

The Alerian MLP ETF NYSEARCA: AMLP offers exposure to an index of energy infrastructure Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) operating within the midstream segment of the sector. The index is a capped, float-adjusted, market cap-weighted group of MLPs, and it yields a fund with just 16 positions. The largest names in AMLP's portfolio, including major firms like Sunoco NYSE: SUN and Energy Transfer NYSE: ET, have sizable allocations of about 13% or more.

MLPs are partnerships that require regular distributions and may come with some tax advantages compared to other corporate structures.

If these companies avoid corporate-level taxes due to their pass-through entity status, it's a benefit to investors as well. This has played out so far this year, as AMLP has provided market-beating returns of 14% while also paying a sizable dividend yield of 7.5%.

For this stability and the benefit of both strong returns and passive income, investors must pay a hefty fee of 1.01% annually.

Still, the fund's strong asset base and trading volume indicate that this is not an overwhelming concern for many investors.

A Low-Cost Alternative, But Beware Liquidity Concerns

A more diversified fund but with substantially lower assets and trading volume, the Alerian Energy Infrastructure ETF NYSEARCA: ENFR takes a different approach to the midstream category. This fund targets an index of midstream energy firms operating in the North American energy infrastructure business. Its 30 holdings overlap with AMLP above, so despite the difference in focus, these funds are unlikely to be a good complement to one another in the same portfolio.

Having a broader basket of stocks means that ENFR is not quite so heavily concentrated in individual names, but the biggest positions do get up to 8% or more of the portfolio.

One key advantage that ENFR has over AMLP and some other funds in this space is its expense ratio, which is substantially lower at 0.35%. As a trade-off, however, investors may face liquidity issues due to limited investor attention to this fund.

ENFR has also had a very strong start to 2026, returning 26% year-to-date (YTD) with a dividend yield of 3.9%.

Another Take on an MLP Approach

Investors uniquely interested in the MLP approach to midstream energy will find an alternative to AMLP in the Global X MLP & Energy Infrastructure ETF NYSEARCA: MLPX. This ETF takes a unique approach in that it only offers limited direct exposure to MLPs themselves, instead choosing to focus on general partners of MLPs as well as other energy infrastructure firms in order to avoid fund-level taxes.

This fund lies in between the others above in terms of its cost, with an expense ratio of 0.45%, and also with regard to assets and trading volume. Like ENFR, it has 31 holdings and a U.S. focus, with the largest positions accounting for about 9% of assets. In terms of performance, MLPX is right up alongside ENFR, having returned about 25% YTD. It also has appeal as a passive income play thanks to its dividend yield of 4%.

Each of the three funds above has solidly outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year while also providing compelling distributions. In a different energy sector environment, this performance level may not be quite as impressive, but the underlying companies in these funds should continue to provide stable income regardless. Further, their vital role in the energy space helps to protect them—and their investors—even in the face of inflation, geopolitical turmoil, and other issues.