Dollar & Dirt

Of the 44 energy-sector stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index SPX +0.11% , Halliburton Co. HAL +0.38%  and National Oilwell Varco  rank No. 1 and No. 2 as the most highly recommended by Wall Street analysts, according to data compiled by FactSet Research.

Coal and natural gas producer Consol Energy CNX +5.16% , refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp. MPC -0.36%  and independent energy producer Apache Corp. APA +1.88%  rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively, among analysts’ favorites.

Schlumberger, the largest oil service company by market cap, ranks No. 6 on the list of S&P 500 energy stocks, which includes electric power producers, big oil companies, independent energy companies, refiners and oil service firms.

Noticeably absent from analysts’ top recommendations are the two largest energy-sector firms, Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM +0.41%  and Chevron Corp. CVX +0.04% . With a combined market capitalization topping $600 billion, the pair are major components of the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.15% . Exxon reflects 11% of the Dow by market size, according to data from Dow Jones Indexes. Chevron ranks fourth with almost a 6% share.