I’ll take door number three, the one containing moderate annual gains and more provocative Barron’s covers once we exit the dog days of August.

In fact, the feature is a roundtable with two moderately bullish MLP fund managers and one moderately bearish analyst rehashing the familiar pluses and minuses. On the one hand, the shale boom and economic growth with the attendant energy infrastructure needs. On the other, rising interest rates and full valuations after a decade-long rally barely interrupted by the financial crisis.

The trading action over the last four weeks has been friendlier to the bearish view, amid the noise of quarterly reporting. The Alerian MLP Index briefly reclaimed its May highs on July 15, but has since retreated not quite 5 percent in low-volume trading.

In fact, the results have been quite good, as this month’s Portfolio Update underscores. And despite strong gains over the long run, the rapidly shifting US energy scene has created opportunities for partnerships with the right assets in the right place, as shale drillers look to bring their burgeoning output to the markets where they can realize the highest prices.

This week’s Best Buys are profiting handsomely from this trend and have a long runway of highly visible growth ahead of them. Sunoco Logistics (NYSE: SXL) (which got a plug in the Barron’s piece) is the preeminent gatherer of crude in fast-developing mid-continental basins and a big player in transporting natural gas liquids from the booming Marcellus shale in the Northeast. EQT Midstream (NYSE: EQM) is a pure Marcellus play providing badly needed gas gathering. We’re excited to add these reasonably priced growth stories to our portfolio.

CVR Refining (NYSE: CVRR) is another portfolio addition this month thanks to a highly attractive yield and robust assets, but the outlook for other refining and refining  and refining logistics MLPs is considerably cloudier, as our Sector Spotlight survey makes clear.

We’ve also grown incrementally more bullish on two prior holdings. Magellan Midstream (NYSE: MMP) in the Conservative Portfolio is delivering rapid growth with top notch distribution coverage and improving credit metrics as crude flows from the interior accelerate. It’s been upgraded to a Buy from a Hold. Teekay LNG Partners (NYSE: TGP) isn’t growing much at the moment but is poised to take off alongside liquefied natural gas exports from the US in a few years. We’ve raised the buy below target accordingly.

You will find details on these calls, along with six downgrades to Hold and one to Sell and fresh earnings and distribution updates for every one of our picks, in Portfolio Update.

This month’s In Focus relates the high-stakes dispute between two of the largest MLPs (both portfolio holdings) about just what constitutes a partnership down in Texas and when a partnership’s word is or isn’t its bond.

And though the case could have serious implications for the disputants, the larger takeaway is that the set of growth opportunities for MLPs is finite and highly dependent on the market dislocations brought on by the onset of shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing. If production in some of the newer basins currently booming should slack off while the development of new shale prospects slows, that more than the rising interest rates will be a danger signal. For the moment, though, the American interior is overflowing with oil and gas, so the coast is clear. Happy investing.