Gold & Silver Slip, Stocks Sell-Off as Congress Wrangles Over Wall Street Bail-Out

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold and silver chopped around at modestly lower levels in Asia and London on Tuesday before briefly rising to see slight gains at $903.60 and $13.53 respectively early in New York.

Both Gold and silver then fell back off into the close and made new session lows of $879.60 and $12.947 ahead of a late rally that left them with losses of 1.78% and 2.32% for the session.

The metals then nearly erased those losses in after-hours access trade.

The Gold Price in Euros fell to about €606, platinum lost $30 to $1204, and copper fell nearly 10 cents to about $3.17.

Gold and silver equities fell over 4% by early afternoon before they rebounded back to see only about 1% losses, but they then fell back off in late trade and ended with about 3% losses.

Crude oil fell back from Monday's record 15% jump on worries that the ongoing financial crises will result in a drop in world energy demand.

The US Dollar index rose slightly and Treasury bonds fell as worries over the bailout plan eased, but many more questions still remain and few see an end to this financial crisis anytime soon no matter what the proposed solution.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly slightly higher in morning action, but they then fell back off in afternoon trade on worries over the global economy.

Wednesday at 15:00 GMT brings the Existing US Home Sales report for August, expected at 4.93 million annualized. There were no major economic reports Tuesday, but the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that US home prices fell a record 5.3% in July.

Dominating the day's headlines was the testimony before the Senate Banking Committee by Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed Chairman Bernanke, Federal Housing Finance Agency director James Lockhart, and SEC Chairman Cox.

All four faced tough questions as they tried to sell the committee their $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street's bad debts. Few analysts expect very many members of Congress to actually vote against the plan, but controversy and political maneuvering may delay it.

The group testifies again before the House Financial Services committee tomorrow and a Congressional vote is hoped for by Friday.