Traditional master limited partnerships specializing in energy transport and processing remain this newsletter’s bread and butter, even though their recent performance might lead you to believe that the bread’s gone moldy and the butter rancid.

I continue to believe that MLP performance will improve as the prices of oil and natural gas move back up closer to their global production costs, spurring a recovery in U.S. drilling.

But we’re obviously not there yet and I see few energy bargains that we don’t already recommend. Feeding this caution is the sense that many subscribers remain overexposed to this currently troubled industry.

Other sectors have had their own troubles of late, notably the publicly traded partnerships (PTP) of alternative asset managers. But their business fundamentals and financial resources would make most energy MLPs green with envy right now and for the foreseeable future.

This month’s New Buys add another of these PTPs to our portfolios, along with one of its affiliated real estate investment trusts. These recommendations come with their own risks, but also with double-digit trailing yields not dependent on the price of Marcellus natural gas or of the West Texas Intermediate.

We’ve been lucky in the timing of our financial partnership picks in the past, notably in the brief but thrilling ride on the bandwagon on Icahn Enterprises (NYSE: IEP) two years ago.

We added Oaktree Capital Management (NYSE: OAK) at about the same time, and while it hasn’t delivered a bonanza it remains a solid and steady income producer, joined more recently by Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and KKR (NYSE: KKR), and now Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG), on our roster of alternative asset managers.

Another non-energy PTP, the amusement park operator Cedar Fair (NYSE: FUN), has returned 13% since we recommended it in January.

But we certainly haven’t confined ourselves to partnerships. Over the last three years MLP Profits has profitably advocated MLP general partnerships, whether organized as partnerships or corporations, as the ultimate repositories of value in midstream energy processing. In the last year we’ve also branched out into refiners and tanker operators.

This is because we care less about the tax structure of a business than about its ability to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns, and believe that our subscribers share that preference. New pick New Residential Investment (NYSE: NRZ) is a REIT paying ordinary dividends, but that doesn’t mean its 12% yield isn’t worthy of attention.