With oil rising, natural gas falling, and coal trending slightly higher today, is it any wonder that energy bulls feel like they're chasing their tails?

Well, let's add to the confusion. As I write…

Natural gas stocks are split, with EnCana (ECA:NYSE) down and El Paso (EP:NYSE) up… National Fuel Gas Co. (NFG:NYSE) is par for the course.

Oil stocks are split, with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:NYSE) up, Marathon Oil (MRO:NYSE) down… and ConocoPhillips (COP:NYSE) even for the day. Oil services are mostly up though, with drillers like Transocean, Inc. (RIG:NYSE) and Global SantaFe (GSF:NYSE) up.

Coal companies are split: Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU:NYSE) is up and Arch Coal, Inc. (ACI:NYSE) is down.

So how do you know where to put your money?

For broadminded investors, momentary disharmony is nothing to shy away from. In fact, smart investors use these bipolar episodes to find a really great deal.

Take Marathon Oil, for example. MRO has a market cap of $31.66 billion. Consider it a mid-level growth company.

The recent earnings announcement said that MRO's profit was down 15% this past quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Of course the stock's down a bit today on the news!

Here's the thing: Its P/E ratio is a meek 6.08, but the company has a 13.78% operating margin and has climbed 24.33% in the past 52 weeks. That's despite the huge drop it took back in the fall when oil prices started to plummet.

In fact, MRO made up all those losses and then some. MRO fell 31% in less than a month. After bottoming out, MRO climbed nearly 40% to a new 52-week high of $98.73 in less than three months.

The point is, not all stocks that have bad days are bad for your portfolio. Some can be pretty resilient.

It's time to stop chasing our tails and relax a bit.

That's all for today, enjoy the weekend, and the Super Bowl festivities!