This past week looked great if you just looked at Friday’s 369 point gain. Unfortunately, terrorism in America and a disappointing quantitative easing news from Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank left stocks barely up on the week due to big losses on Thursday and Wednesday. OPEC is also keeping its oil wells pumping in full force, so West Texas Intermediate crude went out just under $40.00 per barrel.

24/7 Wall St. reviews many analyst upgrades and downgrades each of day of the week, and there are often many energy stocks in which analysts are telling investors to buy into oil, gas and alternative energy. What investors should keep in mind is that the oil patch stocks have truly been dogs this year. Not dogs with fleas, but dogs with mange.

Many investors are looking through the oil and energy patch for the stocks that will survive and thrive after the drop in oil is seen. How long that may be is up for a serious debate, but investors looking at the energy patch better be making very long-term views. Those investors also better be able to absorb big losses if things get worse.

The last consideration is that if oil and gas prices get even worse, these analyst calls are going to look silly. They are outside calls from analysts on Wall Street, and analysts are often very wrong. These are some of this week’s top analyst calls in oil, gas and alternative energy.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup on Wednesday. The firm cited a solid balance sheet for this Dow Jones Industrial Average stock and based the call also on its valuation metrics. Chevron closed at $92.48 before the call, but ended the week at $89.71. Chevron has a consensus analyst price target of $97.52, and it has a 52-week trading range of $69.58 to $114.82.

Diamondback Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: FANG) was started as Buy with a $94 price target (versus a prior $78.20 close) at Deutsche Bank. The stock closed out Friday at $76.31 and has a 52-week range of $51.69 to $85.82.

Gulfport Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: GPOR) was maintained as Buy at Jefferies on Thursday, while the price target was cut to $36.00 from $38.00. The latest closing price was $25.14, and Jefferies said that Gulfport’s recent underperformance on a lower growth outlook is now overdone. Gulfport was also part of a larger sector view from SunTrust earlier in the week.

Parsley Energy Inc. (NYSE: PE) received two positive analyst reports this past week but still managed to close down on weak energy prices. Parsley was started as Buy with a $24.00 price target at Deutsche Bank. It was also picked up at Bank of America Merrill Lynch with a new Buy rating and a $25.00 price objective. The stock closed at $18.78 on Friday and has a 52-week range of $11.11 to $20.33.

TerraForm Power Inc. (NASDAQ: TERP) may still have huge upside if these analysts are finally right here, but this one is so risky and volatile that we are almost hesitant to even cover these analyst reports on it. It was raised to Outperform from Perform and was given a $10 price target (versus a $6.90 close) at Oppenheimer. The consensus price target is $22.55 (but keeps falling), and the 52-week range is $6.73 to $42.66. Again, it is so volatile that only the biggest risk takers should dabble in this alternative energy player.

8point3 Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ: CAFD), a yieldco for solar energy generation projects, was raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs on Wednesday. The price target was raised to $17 from $14 in the call, versus a prior $12.25 close and Friday’s $12.67 closing price. Thomson Reuters has a consensus price target of $18.55. 8point3 has a distribution yield equivalent of 5% or so, but it also had a $250 million market cap late in the week. It has been public less than a year, and the trading range in that time has been $10.26 to $21.15.

Again, investors need to know that the energy patch is no safe haven today. If oil and gas prices continue to slide, and there seems to be more risk than reward now, then all these Buy and Outperform ratings may look way too optimistic.

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