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* Gold recovers after plunging to five-year lows
* Wall Street slides with earnings in focus
* Dollar index slips from three-month high
By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) - Commodity prices stabilized on
Tuesday after a recent rout as the U.S. dollar slipped from a
three-month high, while earnings hurt U.S. stocks and helped
drag a gauge of major global equities markets lower.
Spot gold prices halted a plunge of nearly 6 percent in the
past six days. U.S. crude oil futures rose after falling under
$50 a barrel while Brent remained towards the bottom of its
$55-$60 a barrel range, near its lowest since early April.
The dollar strength is seen returning in the short term on
expectation of rate differentials, as the U.S. Federal Reserve
prepares to raise interest rates by year-end.
Stocks on Wall Street fell, with results from bellwethers
IBM and United Technologies weighing the most while Apple was
also down ahead of earnings expected after the closing bell.
Even so, the S&P 500 index was trading less than 1 percent
below its record high set two months ago.
"The indexes will continue to stay range-bound but at the
higher end during the course of the earnings season because it
has already factored in a rate hike this year," said Peter
Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in
New York.
An interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve could be a
negative for stocks, but earnings have surprised in favor of the
bulls.
At 11:40 a.m. (1540 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average
.DJI fell 197.99 points, or 1.09 percent, to 17,902.42, the
S&P 500 .SPX lost 8.46 points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,119.82 and
the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 14.42 points, or 0.28
percent, to 5,204.44.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares .FTEU3
was down 1.3 percent after rising 9.3 percent in the previous
nine sessions. MSCI's gauge of major stock markets globally
.MIWD00000PUS slipped 0.2 percent.
EURO UP BUT DOLLAR SEEN STRONG
The euro bounced back against the dollar after hitting a
three-month low on Monday. It was last up 0.9 percent at $1.0923
and the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a
basket of currencies, fell 0.6 percent.
The prospect of a renewal in dollar strength, however, was
still in focus.
"The tension is fading on the euro down there," said David
Rodriguez, quantitative strategist at FXCM in New York. "The
dollar is still in control."
Spot gold XAU= added 0.9 percent on the day to $1,106.33
after hitting a five-year low Monday.
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Gold price return vs selected assets:
http://link.reuters.com/mux25w
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Oil prices edged up as the U.S. dollar slipped, but remain
set for large monthly drops in the face of a global supply glut.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 22 cents at $56.87 a
barrel. U.S. crude futures CLc1 rose 40 cents to $50.55.
U.S. Treasuries prices were little changed as reduced
concerns over Greece's debt crisis stymied demand for U.S.
government debt.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes US10YT=RR were last up
5/32 in price to yield 2.356 percent, from 2.374 late Monday.
U.S. 30-year bonds US30YT=RR were last up 4/32 to yield 3.0999
percent, from a yield of 3.106 percent late Monday.
(Additional reporting Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Patrick Graham
and Atul Prakash in London, Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo; Editing by
Larry King and W Simon)