Gold added 50 cents an ounce Wednesday on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gaining for the third consecutive trading session. Traders are choosing gold in anticipation of the Federal Reserve initiating a third round of quantitative easing. In addition, economic data has cast a shadow over equities in the past week. Gold closed at $1,695.50 a troy ounce while silver shed 11 cents to $32.30. The dollar index fell 0.14 percent to 81.23. For most of a week, the dollar has shown little movement. The Canadian dollar fell to 99.05 cents and the British pound rose to $1.5901 while the euro rose to $1.2602 and the dollar fell to 78.39 yen.