3:30 pm : Trade in precious metals was headline driven once again. Gold and silver sold off to their respective lows, this morning, following headlines from Senator Harry Reid which said he was willing to hear from House Republicans on debt limit compromise ideas to avoid default. That headline sparked talk of some compromise between Dems an Repubs, but that was short lived after further headlines circulated indicating that both sides were still far apart. Those headlines helped gold futures bounce off of lows back to the flat line. Silver had limited success in rebounding off its lows. Aug gold finished lower by 0.2% to $1612.40 per ounce, while Sept copper shed 1.8% to finish at $39.84 per ounce.

Sept natural gas fell 1.9% to $4.24 per MMBtu following this mornings inventory data, which showed a larger-than-expected build. Futures were able to bounce modestly off those lows to trade back above the $4.22 level, its 200 day moving avg. Sept crude oil finished just above flat at $97.44. DJ30 -35.04 NASDAQ +6.64 SP500 -1.80 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1303/1.7 bln/1257 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1261/692.3 mln/1739

3:00 pm : Treasuries saw small gains today despite the inability of Congress to reach a debt ceiling agreement, and a mediocre 7-yr note auction. Rep. Boehner's plan will be voted on tonight, but it is said to be dead on arrival in the Senate. This afternoon's $29 billion 7-yr note auction drew 2.280% and saw a 2.63x bid/cover as indirect bidders took down just 39.6% (12-auction average 49.5%) of the offering. Direct bidders once again provided some support, snapping up 23.4% of the supply. The light buying has benefitted longer dated paper with the 30-yr seeing a gain of 0.4%. After falling as low as 2.93% earlier this morning, the 10-yr