Oil Alert: Crude Settles Under $81

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A week that saw the price of crude leap to $82 -- its highest level since last October - ended on a whimper on Friday, as oil settled lower amid slumping equities and a resurgent dollar.

After hovering above $81 in the morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the front-month contract for benchmark crude settled at $80.50 a barrel, losing 69 cents during the session.

Still, the price has rallied higher by 2.5% since last Friday, fueled mostly by the dollar's 14-month low against the euro earlier in the week and news of a gasoline stockpile drop.

But today, a move to the safe-haven dollar and away from riskier assets appeared to consume the broader markets, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq tracked backwards on Friday, sliding 1.1%, 1.2% and 0.5%, respectively.

Oil, which is dollar-denominated and has tended to track inversely with the greenback in recent months, went lower as well.

With earnings season underway, next week will showcase a collage of integrated oil companies. Among them, Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote), Chevron(CVX Quote), ConocoPhillips(COP Quote) and Hess(HES Quote) each finished lower on Friday, losing 1.2%, 0.8%, 1.2% and 3.9% each.

American depositary receipts for overseas concerns BP(BP Quote) and Royal Dutch Shell(RDS.A Quote) also closed in the red, down 2.2% and 1.4%.