By Feiwen Rong Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Gold fell for the first day in three, as investors sought cash amid financial turmoil and on concerns about central bank sales of the precious metal and outflows from bullion-backed exchange-traded funds. Investments in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange- traded fund backed by bullion, reached a record 770.6 metric tons on Oct. 10. It fell 3 tons yesterday. The latest weekly release from the European Central Bank showed 7.6 tons of gold was sold during the week ended Oct. 10, Barclays Capital said in a note. ``Gold's fared relatively better than other assets in the financial crisis, but with price swings and central banks sales, some investors may prefer cash now,'' Wallace Ng, precious metals trader in Asia at Fortis Bank, said today by phone from Hong Kong. Bullion for immediate delivery fell as much as $6.81, or 0.8 percent, to $840.09 an ounce before trading at $840.40 at 2:28 p.m. in Singapore. Silver for immediate delivery fell 1.1 percent to $10.175 an ounce. U.S. equities yesterday slumped the most since the crash of 1987, hammered by the biggest drop in retail sales in three years and growing doubt that plans to bail out lenders will keep the economic slump from deepening. Crude oil in New York fell to a more-than-13-month low at $72.10 a barrel because of skepticism a rescue of the world's banks will be enough to avoid a recession and stem a drop in global fuel demand. Copper slumped 7.6 percent today to $4,547 a ton in London while soybeans dropped to a 13-month low. The $829-mark provides immediate support levels on charts traders watch, Adrian Koh, analyst at Phillip Futures Pte., said today in report. ``A break below these levels could bring us much lower to the $780 regions.'' Strengthening Dollar ``We believe that the gold prices in the U.S. dollar terms will eventually decline, especially if financial system conditions further stabilize,'' David Moore, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, said today in a note. The Australian bank expected the U.S. dollar to appreciate against the euro in the year ahead, ``a negative for the gold prices in the dollar terms,'' he added. The U.S. currency advanced to $1.3398 against the euro from $1.3499 yesterday. It reached $1.3259 on Oct. 10, the strongest since March 2007. ``Inflation concerns have also been pushed into the background'' with commodities and energy prices declining, further eroding the bullion's appeal as hedge against inflation, Moore added. December-delivery gold gained 0.4 percent to $842.10 an ounce in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold for December delivery in Shanghai fell 1.9 percent to 183.82 yuan a gram ($837 an ounce). Gold for August delivery fell 2.4 percent to 2,692 yen a gram ($836 an ounce) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 3:26 p.m. local time. To contact the reporter on this story: Feiwen Rong in Singapore at frong2@bloomberg.net

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