Crude Roughed Up by Dollar

Energy futures resumed their free fall Tuesday, with crude oil futures tumbling more than $5 at one point in the day, and near-month natural gas futures shedding almost 5% of their value.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery settled lower by $3.09, or 2.4%, at $127.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its lowest settlement price since June 5. Brent crude for September delivery on the ICE futures exchange settled $3.06 lower at $129.55 a barrel.

Front-month August reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, settled 7.01 cents, or 2.2% lower at $3.1470 a gallon. August heating oil settled 6.97 cents, or 1.9% lower at $3.6782 a gallon.

Reformulated gasoline was off 9 cents at $3.13 a gallon, and heating oil futures slid 7 cents lower at $3.68 a gallon.

Natural gas was down 46 cents at $10.05 per million British thermal units.

The evaporation of the energy market's concern over Tropical Storm Dolly as a threat to offshore energy installations colluded with a huge show of strength in the U.S. dollar to wreak havoc in the Nymex trading pits on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, energy stocks fell broadly lower, with nearly all subsectors wounded by the plummeting commodity prices. ConocoPhillips(COP Quote - Cramer on COP - Stock Picks) finished down 1.8% at $84.31; Chevron (CVX Quote - Cramer on CVX - Stock Picks) lost 1.3% to $85.63, and major international ADRs like Petrobras(PBR Quote - Cramer on PBR - Stock Picks), Sasol Limited (SSL Quote - Cramer on SSL - Stock Picks) and StatoilHydro (STO Quote - Cramer on STO - Stock Picks) were all down more than 3%.

The U.S. Oil Fund(USO Quote - Cramer on USO - Stock Picks), an exchange-traded fund that closely tracks the performance of WTI futures on the Nymex, fell 3% to $103.46.