That’s hardly worthy of a tickertape parade, but thanks are definitely in order to Old Man Winter, who has wrapped  many natural gas and related fuel suppliers in his icy embrace while boosting demand for their product to the highest levels in a decade.

It remains to be seen whether the demand spike and well freeze-offs driving the higher prices will have done enough damage to keep the momentum going once the weather relents.

But since the same bad weather also likely depressed the economic numbers underpinning the lower bond yields the likelihood remains that rates will rebound with economic indicators in the near future.

Have MLP investors now experienced enough head fakes on that front not to sweat a 3 percent yield on the 10-year Treasury if and when? One certainly hopes so.

But MLPs remain expensive based on the cash flow they produce relative to income-tax paying energy corporations. And the disparity remains wider than can be justified by the distribution yields or the tax deferral advantages it confers.

The robust demand for tax-advantaged yield should continue to stimulate MLP equity supply until something gives. And since MLP investors have heavy tax incentives to stay the course, when something does give the price action could prove quite dramatic.

I offer these cautionary notes not to make you feel bad about your MLP investments or about the 33 portfolio picks (not all of them MLPs) that we now recommend. It would be in our direct financial interest to be more promotional; to go on and on about the secular growth opportunities in the midstream and upstream industries, the “story” currently underpinning investor interest and the lofty valuations.

But the story at this point is all too well known, ensuring rapid accumulation of the capital chasing those opportunities. It’s not a reason to panic here in now, but definitely a factor to consider in making investment decisions.

For example, we would to buck the sentiment on Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP), midstream leaders that are now cheaper than MLPs on the whole and as cheap as they’ve been in a couple years amid a modest growth slowdown.

But the leverage taken on by this MLP family, and the equity dilution imposed on unitholders as Kinder Morgan attempts to invest enough growth capital to move what at this point is a very heavy needle keep us holding rather than buying. See In Focus for an analysis of Kinder’s recent woes.

The MLPs we would rather buy here are those with rich yields, a focused opportunity and a secular trend in their favor. That describes OCI Partners (NYSE: OCIP),  a methanol producer benefiting from strong global demand for this gas-derived chemical building block and fuel. In any but the very worst-case scenario OCIP looks set to offer a double-digit yield, perhaps on top of a significant capital gain, with the potential reward worth the unhedged commodity and concentration risks.

AmeriGas (NYSE: APU) is the largest domestic distributor of another gas-derived commodity, propane, a heating fuel that has appreciated even more rapidly than methanol amid the Arctic chill. But whether propane is expensive or dirt cheap the one constant has been the steady expansion of AmeriGas’s margins. The yield is generous and well covered. We’re also recommending AmeriGas’s corporate sponsor UGI (NYSE: UGI), a well-run Pennsylvania utility leveraging its fortuitous position to build out an attractive midstream operation in the Marcellus shale. For more on these three new picks, see Best Buys.

Despite Kinder Morgan’s drag on the MLP Profits portfolio performance and the damage sustained by our two refiners, we have on the whole fared better year-to-date than the Alerian MLP Index, to say nothing of the S&P 500, which is to say we’re almost breaking even ahead of the forthcoming distributions. This month’s portfolio-focused Sector Spotlight credits a very popular Marcellus midstream play as well as a coal general partner benefiting from the higher natural gas prices. Our other Marcellus midstream bets and the gas producer added last month have also outperformed.

Portfolio Update has further details on the recent distribution announcements as well as the first salvo of earnings reports, which have generally been strong and upbeat. May that last as long as possible.