Gold futures fell Wednesday to their lowest level in five weeks, echoing sharp losses in crude oil and U.S. stocks, with a rising dollar also helping push the metal lower. Gold for February delivery was down $8.70, or 1.1%, at $812 an ounce in midmorning trade on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It dropped to $807 earlier in the session, the lowest intraday level since Dec. 10. After trading higher for an eighth consecutive year in 2008, gold has lost more than $70 an ounce, or 8%, so far this year, mostly as a result of a rising U.S. dollar. Wednesday's loss in gold came amid sharp declines in crude oil and U.S. stock markets. Oil for February delivery tumbled more than 5% after a government report showed U.S. petroleum inventories jumped. See Futures Movers. On Wall Street, financial shares, led by the wounded giant Citigroup Inc. , paced Wednesday's market free-fall, with energy and consumer discretionary shares adding to the sharp retreat after the latest confirmations of a deepening recession. See Market Snapshot. In currency trading, the dollar index , which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, rose 0.5% to 84.478. See Currencies. A rising dollar tends to put downward pressure on gold, as it reduces the metal's appeal as an investment alternative. Traders also watched newly released retail sales data. Stung by weak demand and falling prices, sales plunged a seasonally adjusted 2.7% in December from November, the Commerce Department estimated Wednesday. Excluding a 0.7% decline in auto sales, retail sales marked their biggest drop since record-keeping began in the early 1990s, falling 3.1%. And with both gasoline and autos excluded, sales fell 1.5%, the largest drop since September 2001. See Economic Report. Troubles in the ailing banking sector continued Wednesday. Deutsche Bank warned that it will report a loss of about 4.8 billion euros ($6.4 billion) for the fourth quarter, while analysts said HSBC Holdings may need to raise $30 billion in equity and slash its dividend in half. Meanwhile, Citigroup unveiled a brokerage joint venture with Morgan Stanley late Tuesday, in what could be the first part of a major reorganization of the struggling financial-services giant. See full story on Citi. Rounding out the early action in metals futures, March copper fell 5.4% to $1.464 a pound, March silver lost 1.9% to $10.475 an ounce, April platinum dropped 1.7% to $940 an ounce, and March palladium fell 2.8% to $180.15 an ounce. In gold spot trading, the London afternoon gold-fixing price -- a benchmark for gold traded directly between big institutions -- stood at $821.50 an ounce Wednesday, down $5 from the previous day. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded gold fund, totaled 787.60 tons Tuesday, unchanged from a day earlier, according to the latest data from the fund.

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