By MATTHEW CRAFT and BERNARD CONDON
AP Business Writers
NEW YORK – The price of gold, which has climbed for years like a blood pressure reading for anxious investors, plunged Wednesday to its lowest level in three months.
Gold fell almost $58 to $1,614 per ounce. It has declined 15 percent since September, when it hit a peak of $1,907. It had more than doubled from the financial crisis three years earlier.
The decline Wednesday came on an ugly day in the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 125 points – a day that last year probably would have caused fearful investors to buy gold as a protective investment.