Gold settles at lowest price since summer

Gold prices settled at their lowest since mid-summer Friday, down $5.80 to $1,572.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. FactSet said the settlement, the third consecutive down day, was the lowest since July 18. Analysts gave MarketWatch.com two reasons: investor fatigue and the market geared up for the automatic $85 billion in budget cuts known as the sequester, which some say may be supportive for gold. The price for silver closed up 6 cents at $28.49 an ounce. The dollar index was 82.329 on the International Exchange Friday, up from 81.97 Thursday. Against the dollar the euro was $1.3026 from Thursday's $1.3056. Against the yen, the dollar was 93.59 yen from 92.62 yen. The British pound was 1.5029 from $1.5159 Thursday. The dollar was 1.0271 Canadian dollars from 1.0308 Canadian dollars.