From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold Prices plummeted as low as $960.95 late morning in New York on Tuesday and ended near their lows with a loss of 1.7% as crude oil fell back under $100 per barrel and the US Dollar hit a new record low for the third day running.

Silver fell as low as $19.65, and both metals then fell to new lows of $956.00 and $19.52 respectively in after hours access trade before they rebounded back near their COMEX close levels.

The Gold Price in Euros fell near €633 per ounce, platinum rose to $2299 before it fell to close at a new record closing high of $2235, and copper fell over 10 cents to about $3.82.

Gold and silver equities fell nearly 5% from this morning’s new all-time highs by early afternoon before they rebounded a bit in the last couple of hours of trade, but they still ended with over 3% losses.

There were no major economic reports Tuesday, but Ben Bernanke gave a bleak assessment of the banking and housing outlook. Wednesday at 13:15 GMT brings ADP Employment for February expected at 15,000, followed by official Productivity stats for the fourth quarter and then Factory Orders for Jan., expected to show 2.5% contraction.

Back in Tuesday’s markets, crude oil fell back under $100 ahead of today’s expected crude inventory build and before OPEC’s meeting – expected to leave output unchanged.

The US Dollar index found just slight losses for the third day in a row, but it still fell to a new record low as the Yen continued to rise on speculation the fed may cut interest rates by 75 basis points later this month.

The Bank of Canada cut its interest rates by 50 basis points as expected, but the Canadian Dollar still fell as the central bank indicated that more rate cuts are to come. The Australian Dollar also fell despite a widely expected Reserve Bank of Australia 25 basis point hike, since their statement also indicted a more dovish and neutral stance in the future.

US Treasury bonds fell in late trade after another round of rumors surfaced about a bailout for bond insurer Ambac. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell markedly for most of trade on poor forecasts from a variety of companies, but all three indices rallied back higher in late trade and ended mixed.

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