Gold slides Wednesday

Gold futures dropped on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday with the dollar index little changed. Gold dropped $1.90 or 0.11 percent to $1,669 per troy ounce. Gold over the past week has lost $42 or 2.45 percent. A week ago Wednesday, gold was priced at $1,711. Silver for March delivery shed 54 cents or 1.72 percent to $31.13 an ounce. Over the past week, silver has dropped further than gold, giving up 6.8 percent or $2.30. The euro fell to $1.3226 from Tuesday's $1.3229. The dollar rose to 84.4 yen from 83.20 yen. The Australian dollar fell to $1.0482 from $1.0535. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9886 Canadian from 0.9857 Canadian. The British pound fell to $1.6247 from $1.6252.