Gold regains $1,600

The price for an ounce of gold added $8.60 and settled at $1,605.90 Wednesday on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Silver lost 3 cents and closed at $28.65 an ounce. Metal futures were given support by a mixed day in equity markets with most major indexes on Wall Street spending the majority of the day in the red. The Nasdaq index closed slightly higher, while the Standard and Poor's 500 held steady and the Dow Jones industrial average gave up 0.23 percent to 14,526.16 points. The dollar index was higher, climbing 0.42 percent to 83.21 on the International Exchange. Against the dollar, the euro fell to $1.2779 from Tuesday's $1.286. Against the yen, the dollar fell to 94.44 yen from 94.45 yen. The British pound fell to $1.5127 from $1.516. The dollar rose to 1.0163 Canadian dollars from 1.0161 Canadian. The U.S. dollar rose to 7.7635 Hong Kong dollars from 7.7603 HKD.