Wall Street: Stocks mixed, gold down

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Gold: Trading now at $1,642 an ounce, down 1.0% from Monday. Dow Jones industrial average: Trading now at 10,499.70, down 1.5% from Monday.

Mixing it up. After two days of declines, stocks were wavering this morning on encouraging words from Fed chief Ben Bernanke and discouraging words from European finance ministers.

Trimming the luxury. Employees at Barclays’ investment bank are having to cut back on business-class flights and free meals as part of the company’s cost-cutting measures.

Political gold. As politics plays a bigger role in determining the direction of stocks, hedge funds are paying big money to get intelligence from Washington.

UBS still in the black. Even with $2.3 billion in losses from its rogue trader, Swiss bank UBS is planning to post a modest profit in the third quarter.

Defending Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley’s CEO sent a memo to his employees defending the bank, as investors made a run on its stock.

Second careers. As the NBA lockout stretches on, Philadelphia 76ers guard Andre Iguodala is using the time off to do a brief internship at Bank of America that has taken him to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Love at a protest. A Wall Street protester arrested over the weekend has taken to Craigslist to find a cute fellow protester who he’d just met before being hauled off.

-- Nathaniel Popper in New York
Twitter.com/nathanielpopper