Gold up 2% to $1,360 as S&P 500 drops

NEW YORK: Gold rose 2 percent to a near two-month high, as a sell-off in US equities helped lift bullion above a key technical resistance at $1,350 which triggered heavy buy-stop orders.
Silver climbed 5 percent for its seventh consecutive daily gain, and platinum and palladium rose at least 2 percent.
After trading sharply lower earlier in the session, gold staged a $30 rally as the S&P 500 equities index tumbled 1.5 percent on disappointing results from Wal-Mart and Cisco.
A barrage of automatic buy-stop orders were set off after gold accelerated gains to rise above the $1,350 mark, an area bullion attempted to breach several times in the last two months, but had failed each time, said Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader at Integrated Brokerage Services LLC.
Spot gold jumped 2.2 percent to $1,363.84 an ounce by 1:19 p.m. EDT (1719 GMT), having hit $1,367.76, its highest since June 19.
US Comex gold futures for December were up $30.40 to $1,363.70 an ounce, preliminary Reuters data showed.
Earlier, the metal fell as much as 1.1 percent to a low of $1,318.81 an ounce after data showed US jobless claims fell to a near six-year low last week and consumer prices rose broadly in July.
Silver was up 4.9 percent to $22.89, having earlier set a near three-month high at $23.14 on ounce.
Platinum was up 2 percent to $1,529.50 an ounce, while palladium gained 3 percent to $758.47 an ounce.