By Claudia Assis & Polya Lesova, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures ended higher and above the $80-a-barrel mark on Monday as confidence on Wall Street and easing concerns over Greece pressured the U.S. dollar and lifted commodities. Investors shed concerns about global interest-rate increases would crimp the economic recovery and bring about lower energy demand as the dollar gave some ground to the euro and U.S. stocks gained. Crude oil for May delivery, the most actively traded contract, settled 63 cents higher at $81.60 a barrel. Oil for April delivery, a contract expiring Monday, ended 57 cents higher at $81.25. Shares of U.S. Oil Fund (USO 39.56, +0.36, +0.92%) , a large exchange-traded fund backed by oil, gained 0.9% Monday. The ETF has gained 8.2% in the past three months and notched a gain of nearly 29% in the past 12 months. Confidence on Wall Street returned after the passage of U.S. health-care legislation late Sunday and health-care and consumer related stocks gained Monday. The euro strengthened versus the dollar as German Chancellor Angela Merkel all but put Greece's fate into the hands of the International Monetary Fund. In the absence of major economic data Monday, oil investors were taking most of their cues from currency and equity markets. U.S. stocks ended higher, with the Dow industrials (INDU 10,786, +43.91, +0.41%) gaining 43.91 points, or 0.4%, to 10,785.89. Market participants chose to focus on the dollar and rising stocks Monday, ignoring weaker fundamentals, said Michael Fitzpatrick, an energy analyst at MF Global. "It seems the market just fell in love with this correlation with the stock market", and shrugged off concerns about the "tepid" recovery and the dangers of deflation, he said. Fitzpatrick said he expects oil to head lower this week, with $79 a barrel an "appropriate" level for the market at the moment. Concerns about Greece have weighed on the euro and boosted the dollar in recent weeks. A stronger dollar tends to hamper commodities, as it makes them more expensive for holders of other currencies and reduces their value as an investment hedge. The U.S. dollar index (DXY 80.62, -0.03, -0.04%) , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, fell to 80.56 from 80.747 on Friday. Oil prices slumped 1.8% on Friday, pressured by the U.S. dollar's strength and the decision of India's central bank to raise interest rates. The Reserve Bank of India raised its key lending and borrowing rates by a quarter-percentage point on Friday to contain inflation and anchor expectations of rising prices. The RBI raised the repurchase rate, or key lending rate, to 5% and the reverse repurchase rate, or the borrowing rate, to 3.5%. Elsewhere in energy trading, gasoline for May gained 0.4% to $2.26 a gallon. Heating oil for May gained 1% to $2.10 a gallon. Natural gas for April bucked the upward trend in energy to end nearly 2% down, at $4.14 per million British thermal units.

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