Gold stands tall

Manila
Gold edged down, but stayed close to its highest level in almost seven weeks on Monday as worries over a slowing Chinese economy pushed investors away from risky assets and into those deemed as safe haven.
Asian equities tumbled to three-year lows, the U.S. dollar retreated and industrial commodities from copper to oil slid to their weakest since 2009.
"Certainly gold is finding itself a bit of a safe-haven bid with all the volatility that's going on in markets," said Victor Thianpiriya, commodity strategist at ANZ Bank. "If things do get a lot worse then gold will certainly go a lot higher."
Spot gold was down 0.6 percent at $1,153.20 an ounce by 0638 GMT, coming off the day's peak of $1,165.11. But bullion's drop was shallow compared to a 3.2 percent fall in U.S. crude and 2 percent decline in copper.
Gold rose to as much as $1,168.40 on Friday, its highest since July 7. It gained more than 4 percent last week, the most since mid-January.