LONDON: Investors are gaining confidence: up to a point: that 2018 will be the year of oil stocks.While shares in top energy companies have risen since mid-2017, they have failed to keep step with recovering crude markets, opening up a historically unusual performance gap. Big oil stocks have also underperformed broader equity indexes.Uncertainty over whether the crude rally can stick and fears that advances in electric vehicles will undermine longer-term demand for oil still overshadow the sector.But a brighter outlook for oil prices compared with the slump of 2014-15 - coupled with a revival in energy companies' profits and cash generation after three years of brutal cuts - could mark a turning point, according to investors and a string of global banks.Read full news