RE:TVEI would say there are two perfectly valid ways to play the Canadian oil names:
(1) Take your diviends and run. This makes a lot of sense if you think oil investments will stay out of favor for good.
(2) Hold for the long term based on fundamentals. This should work if oil company stocksever regain some relationship to the money they make and their growth prospects. The clearwater growth companies (like tve) are well positioned for this scenario.
So, the best "logical" reason I have for lagging stock performance is that (1) is more fashionable these days.
I guess there is a third way. You could trade the daily fluctuations. But that looks a lot like a roulette wheel to me.
Cheers.