SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Investors were quick to snap up gold futures after ratings agency Moody’s cut Greece’s debt four notches to Ba1, but not enough to rescue gold from settling lower Monday. Gold for August delivery was off $5.70, or 0.5%, to $1,224.50, after posting losses of more than $10 earlier. Copper futures rallied 3%.

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks ended another volatile session mostly higher on Tuesday, with a rebound in materials and financial shares helping the Dow Jones Industrial Average recover most of a nearly 300-point drop that had pushed it below the 10,000 mark. Fear over the impact of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and tensions between North and South Korea had led the Dow industrials to as low as 9,774.48 during the session. But the blue-chip average recovered to end down 22.82 points, or 0.2%, at 10,043.75 by the close. Blue-chip gains were led by shares of Home Depot , up 2.3%, and Alcoa Inc. , up 1.9%. In the broad market, the S&P 500 index rose 0.38 points to 1,074.03, led by the materials sector, up 1.6%, and the financials and consumer discretionary sectors, both up 0.8%. The Nasdaq Composite ended down 2.6 points, or 0.1%, at 2,210.95.