Last year, the energy sector emerged as one of the notable laggards in an otherwise red-hot U.S. stock market. The sector notched a respectable, but below-market, return of 7.9%, falling to match the 16.4% gain by the S&P 500 in large part due to a big pullback in oil prices in the second half of 2025. Thankfully, oil and gas stocks are looking to flip the script in the early innings of the new year, with the energy sector up 11.2% in the year-to-date, the best sector performance so far in the year and incomparable to a 1.9% gain by the broad-market…