The energy sector took a broad beating in afternoon trading Tuesday, as crude oil and natural gas prices took sharp dives on the back of a surge in the U.S. dollar and continued fears that a recession would dampen demand. The SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF /zigman2/quotes/206420077/composite XLE -2.06% tumbled 5.8% toward a more than four-month low, with all 21 of the equity components losing ground by more than 4%. The biggest decliners were shares of Halliburton Co. /zigman2/quotes/210488727/composite HAL -3.83% , which slumped 9.0%, and APA Corp. /zigman2/quotes/200648444/composite APA -3.08% , which dropped 8.5%. Among the more-active components, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s stock /zigman2/quotes/204455864/composite XOM -1.94% slid 5.0% toward the lowest close since mid-April, even after the company said late Friday that it would get a boost of at least $2.5 billion to second-quarter profit from rising oil and gas prices. Elsewhere, shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp. /zigman2/quotes/207018272/composite OXY -1.99% were knocked down 5.1% and Marathon Oil Corp. /zigman2/quotes/205031829/composite MRO -2.91% took a 7.9% hit. The best performer in the ETF was Chevron's stock /zigman2/quotes/205871374/composite CVX -2.01% , which fell 4.3%. Meanwhile, continuous crude oil futures /zigman2/quotes/209723049/delayed CL00 -2.79% dove 9.4% and natural gas futures /zigman2/quotes/210189548/delayed NG00 -0.25% sank 5.8%, while the S&P 500 /zigman2/quotes/210599714/realtime SPX +0.37% lost 0.9%.

















