As markets in Asia, Europe and the United States saw their stocks plunging in quick successions on Tuesday, investors again rallied to the proverbial safe asset and pushed up gold futures, climbing by as much as $US1259.30 per ounce at closing.

Amidst the deepening worries that global markets would still hamper their way through recovery, gold soared to its Tuesday high of $US1261.60, eclipsed only by the $US1266.50 posted in late June this year, with all the gains being nudged by the Euro's decline of 1.4 percent as against the US dollar.

Lind-Waldock senior analyst Adam Klopfenstein said that the precious metal has been the traditional shelter of wary investors and as the markets emitted grave concerns, it was almost automatic that gold came blazing its way up to soothe the worries of investors.

Mr Klopfenstein stressed that gold is back in vogue as stocks wobbled and started shedding their previous gains, sending the precious metal's value skyrocketing as "people would want protection from a downdraft in stocks, we would be seeing a lot of the flight-to-quality bid come into gold."

Gold futures for the December deliveries improved by $US8.20 or 0.7 percent and settled at $US1259.30 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, notching up so far gains of up to 15 percent this year and marking its ninth consecutive years of consistent climbs.

Also, gold prices in terms of UK pounds and Euros surged to a record high, its highest level since July this year as the MSCI World Index of equities gave up values by as much as 1.2 percent.

That same day also saw the declines of other precious metals being traded in New York as the Comex December silver dipped by 0.2 percent while the Nymex October palladium retreated by 1.6 percent, with the December platinum losing some 0.3 percent of its value in the exchange.