Stocks are surging, oil is rallying, and the US dollar is getting smoked

Near 2:00 pm ET on Tuesday, the Dow was up more than 260 points, the S&P 500 was up more than 1%, and the Nasdaq, while logging more muted gains, was up 30 points.

The US dollar, meanwhile, was down more than 1% and the euro was at multi-week highs against the dollar and the Aussie dollar had gained back most of its losses suffered last night after the Reserve Bank of Australia announced it would cut interest rates.

In economic news, the main report in the US on Tuesday was the December read on factory orders, which showed orders fell 3.4%, more than was expected as the decline in November was also revised lower.

In stock news, a number of oil & gas names were ripping higher, including Williams Partners, up 20%, McDermott International, up 19%, and Whiting Petroleum, up 14%, among a number of others.

From FinViz, here's a quick grab of some of the huge gains in oil & gas companies on Tuesday.

FinViz

And here's the huge rally in WTI today, which is up another 7% after starting its explosion off its lows late last week.

And the tumble in the dollar.