Gold Gains as Stocks Slide

Investors liked the news and the stock was jumping 2% recently.

In base metals, Comex December copper contracts tumbled 10.44 cents to close at $3.24 a pound.

"A sharp jump in copper stocks [up 4,675 metric tons] is keeping somewhat of a lid on copper prices this morning," writes Edward Meir, an analyst at Man Financial, in a daily market brief. "We still maintain that copper could retest the bottom end of its trading range."

The lower prices for the red metal were impacting shares of U.S. copper miner Phelps Dodge(PD Quote), which were recently losing 3.9%.

Elsewhere, RBC Capital Markets trimmed its price target on Canadian smelter Alcan(AL Quote) from $68 to $66 a share, but reiterated an outperform rating. Prudential upped its price forecast for shares of diversified miner BHP(BHP Quote) from $31 a share to $35, but reiterated an underweight rating.

In recent trading, Alcan was down 3.6% to $45.43 while BHP was up 0.4% to $42.73.