Copper, oil, corn drop after US talks stall

Copper, oil and grains declined, while gold climbed to a record as a lack of progress in raising the U.S. debt ceiling boosted concern that the U.S. may default, hurting industrial commodities and foodstuffs and boosting demand for a haven. Immediate-delivery gold gained as much as 1.4 percent to $1,624.07 an ounce and traded at $1,614.19 by 1:24 p.m. in Singapore. Copper on the London Metal Exchange declined as much as 0.7 percent to $9,608 a metric ton. Crude for September delivery fell 1.1 percent to $98.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The U.S. is the biggest consumer of crude oil and the second-largest user of copper. Article continues below House Speaker John Boehner told Republicans that there's no agreement on a plan for raising the ceiling before a default threatened for Aug. 2. The impasse has boosted the chance Standard & Poor's will cut the U.S. credit rating from AAA within three months to 50 percent, the company said July 21. "We see classic risk-off mode and they'll certainly be selling commodities, gold the exception," said Paul Deane, an economist at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne. The collapse July 22 of the quest by President Barack Obama and Boehner for a deal to slice as much as $4 trillion from the long-term debt through overhauls of entitlement programs and the tax code left all sides staring at a crisis with no clear path forward and little time to spare. Investors boosted gold holdings in exchange-traded products to a record 2,122.6 tons last week as European policy makers met for the second time in a month in a bid to calm Greece's financial distress and inoculate Spain and Italy from contagion. "EU resolve on Greece shifts market focus to stalled U.S. debt-ceiling talks, which gold prices are likely to track," James Steel, an analyst at HSBC Securities USA Inc., wrote in a note dated July 22.