NEW YORK: Gold on Tuesday jumped its most in nearly two months on safe-haven buying by investors wary of Europe's nagging debt crisis, while US crude extended its run above $90, further cutting its discount to London's Brent on tight supplies.
Financial markets were broadly lower as the cancellation of an European finance ministers' meeting cast doubts over plans to tackle the region's deepening debt crisis.
Data showing US consumers at their gloomiest in 2-1/2 years also prompted investors to dump Wall Street stocks in favor of US Treasuries.
The rush to safety boosted gold, pushing physical bullion and futures up 3 percent to above $1,700 an ounce by late afternoon in New York.
It was the biggest one-day rise in gold since early September and the third straight session of gains that put the precious metal up 4 percent for the week.
The rally came after weeks of sharp swings pushed gold to three-month lows below $1,550 at one point. Some traders expected a return to early September's record highs above $1,900, citing the European crisis as possible support.
"People are realizing that the European situation is not resolving itself, and it's coming to the forefront again," said Zachary Oxman, managing director at futures broker TrendMax.com, one of the few anticipating $1,900 gold.
At 3:00 p.m. EDT, the spot price of bullion was up 3.4 percent at above $1,706 an ounce, its highest since Sept. 25. Gold futures for December on New York's COMEX exchange settled up 2.9 percent at $1,700.40 an ounce.
On the broader commodities front, the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index rose almost half a percent, adding to Monday's gains that put the 19-commodities index up nearly 3 percent week-to-date.
Base metals] and crop prices mostly fell, but the CRB still advanced, thanks to the rally in US crude, which accounts for a quarter of the index's weighting.
US crude's benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil ended up 2 percent at $93.17 a barrel in a second day of spread trading that narrowed its gap to London's Brent. The euro zone's woes weighed on Brent, making it close down 53 cents at $110.92 a barrel.
The Brent/WTI spread has shrunk $7 in three days to below $18 a barrel, its narrowest since July. Barely two weeks ago, Brent was trading at a record premium of $28 to US crude.
WTI futures prices moved deeper into backwardation, a situation where prompt futures are costlier than forward prices. Since the 2008 financial crisis, oil futures were in a state of contango, with the front-month cheaper than contracts further out.
The collapse in the Brent/WTI spread and abrupt reversal from contango seemed to stem from traders' capitulation to weeks of growing signs that US Midwest oil supplies out of Cushing, Oklahoma, were tightening.
"The market had gotten secure in the notion that there is and there would be more than ample supplies of crude in and around Cushing, but the fact of the matter is that the supplies of crude deliverable against the NYMEX futures contracts are limited and falling rather than excessive and rising," commodities investor Dennis Gartman said in a daily note.
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