The price of gold jumped above $1,600 (£1,000) an ounce for the first time as debt worries in the US and Europe continued to trouble investors¹.

受美国和欧洲债务危机持续困惑着投资者的影响，黄金价格首次涨到1600美元每盎司。

The precious metal rose $12.30 to settle at $1,602 an ounce in London trading.

Monday capped a record breaking rally - 11 straight days of gain.

Gold is considered a safe investment and usually gains at times of global economic uncertainty².

Silver also rallied more than 3% to a two month high, above $40 an ounce.

"Gold hit another milestone³... at $1,600 as investors lose confidence in the ability of politicians to get a grip with the debt problems weighing down on sentiment（感情，情绪） ," said Michael Hewson from CMC Markets, a trading group.

"More advances look likely," he said.

The record breaking price comes ahead of Thursday's summit of eurozone leaders in Brussels where they will once again try to contain the growing debt crisis.

Investors are concerned that Greece may default on its debt, and countries such as Italy and Spain, who are also struggling with high debt levels, will get pulled into the crisis.

US default?

Meanwhile in the US politicians are struggling to reach an agreement on a deficit⁴ reduction plan in time to avoid a debt default before the deadline of 2 August.

Nicholas Brooks⁵, the head of investment strategy at ETF Securities, told the BBC investors are worried about the American economy.

"I think the concern is that if we see another round of so called quantitative⁶ easing（量化宽松） , it's basically de-basing the US dollar, it's putting new dollars into the system and that of course makes investors concerned about holding onto US dollars."

"When they look at the alternative, the euro and the issues that are now affecting the euro, they look for alternatives and gold of course is one of the first places they go, along with other so called hard commodities," he said.