By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch MADRID (MarketWatch) — The benchmark crude-oil contract fell in electronic trading Tuesday after posting a strong increase overnight in New York, with mild losses for U.S. stock-index futures and concerns about the impact of high energy costs weighing on the commodity. May futures for light, sweet crude CLK2 -0.58% dropped 82 cents, or 0.8%, to $104.42 on Globex during European business hours. The fall came after a $2.21-a-barrel jump in prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange overnight. While a reported halt of Iraqi oil exports from the Kurdistan region and an improvement in the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index for March helped lift crude prices on Monday, weak European manufacturing data kept alive concerns about the possible impact of high oil prices on the region’s economy. The fall came after recent data showing strong production by oil exporters and a recent increase in U.S. crude inventories. The ICE dollar index DXY +0.10% slipped during afternoon hours in East Asia. But U.S. index futures were lower as well, weighing on crude. S&P 500 SPX +0.75% futures were down 2.7 points to 1,409.90, while Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +0.40% futures gave up 24 points to 13,165. Also in energy futures Tuesday, May gasoline RBK2 +0.46% was off 1 cent to $3.37 a gallon. The heating-oil HOK2 -0.31% and natural gas NGK12 +0.88% contracts for the same month fell by 2 cents, or 0.7%, to $3.29 per gallon, and by 3 cents, or 1.2%, to $2.13 per million British thermal units, respectively.

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