The gold price traded as high as $1,609.50 Sunday night, within $0.50 of its all-time high of $1,610 per ounce.  The lack of an agreement between President Obama and congressional Republicans to raise the debt ceiling led to buying in gold and selling in stock prices.  The August 2 deadline to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling is looming and a deal does not appear to be forthcoming.

S&P 500 stock futures tumbled as much as 18.30 to 1321.70 before rebounding to trade off 11.90 at 1328.10 at 6:10pm eastern time Sunday night.