Dollar\\\'s rally bad news for oil, multinationals

NEW YORK, Sept 21 (Reuters) : The asset with the greatest prowess of late has been the US dollar, and if its rally continues, it threatens to eat into the earnings of multinational companies.

The greenback's recent gains have lifted the dollar index .DXY - a measure of the dollar's value relative to six currencies - for 10 consecutive weeks.

That marks the dollar's longest rally since the index was created in 1973 - and could pose significant headwinds to dollar-sensitive sectors of the market, particularly companies that respond to commodity prices affected by the greenback, and multinationals that do much of their business overseas.

"For the past few years, the US dollar has been trading in a relatively quiet trading range. This summer, something changed. We are now seeing a new uptrend develop," said Adam Sarhan, founder and CEO of Sarhan Capital in New York.