From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Spot Gold Prices traded mostly slightly higher in Asia and London on Tuesday, before spiking about 1% higher early in New York to above $686 by about 08:45 EST.

The Gold Market then fell back off for most of the rest of trade and ended around $3 off its highs with a gain of just 0.53% for the day.

Silver rocketed near $13.50 and saw close to 2% gains before it also fell back off in later New York trade, but it still ended with a notable gain of 0.83%.

Priced In Euros Gold rose to about €495, platinum lost $6 to $1,322, palladium lost $3 to $366, and copper rose slightly to about $3.67.

Gold and silver equities found small gains in morning trade, but they were then dragged down in afternoon trade by general market weakness and closed with over 1% losses on average. AngloGold reported closing a mine shaft, while Newmont announced new investment in Indonesia.

There were no major economic reports from the United States on Tuesday. Wednesday at 10:00 EST brings Existing Home Sales for June, and at 14:00 is the release of the Fed’s latest Beige Book of economic data and forecasts

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell nearly 2% by the close, matching losses in London's FTSE100, as the
homebuilders and financials took another hit on an especially
disappointing report from Countrywide Financial. This amplified worries
about mortgage problems and their impact on the rest of the market and
economy.

In the broader markets oil fell for the third session in a row and closed almost 2% lower as Iran agreed to let IAEA officials visit a reactor building site. Speculation grew that OPEC may possibly raise production levels.

US Treasury bonds rose and the US Dollar fell to yet to another new all-time low versus the Euro and a new 26 year low versus the British Pound on worries that problems in subprime mortgages are spreading to other US loans as well.