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Gold fell, heading for the biggest three-day drop in almost three years, as demand for riskier assets eroded the appeal of the precious metal as a haven.

Gold futures rose as much as 18 percent this month, touching an all-time high of $1,917.90 an ounce on Aug. 23 before erasing most of the gains. The value of a 100-ounce futures contract in New York plunged $10,400 yesterday, more than the $7,425 margin requirement that day, prompting exchange owner CME Group Inc. to increase the minimum cash deposit on trades. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index headed for a weekly gain after a 16 percent decline in the previous four weeks.

"It looks nasty, but this is a normal correction given the magnitude of the move," Matt Zeman, a strategist at Kingsview Financial in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. "The parabolic move finally collapsed. You've got a return to risk appetite, and that's taken the wind out of gold's sails."

Gold futures for December delivery fell $20.40, or 1.2 percent, to $1,736.90 at 10:58 a.m. on the Comex in New York. A close at that price would leave the most-active contract down 8.2 percent in the past three sessions, the biggest slump since October 2008. In London, gold for immediate deliver was down $23, or 1.3 percent, at $1,736.32.

The metal is in the 11th year of a bull market, the longest winning streak since at least 1920 in London, as investors seek to diversify away from equities and some currencies. Central banks are adding to reserves for the first time in a generation, joining billionaire investors including John Paulson in hoarding bullion. The Federal Reserve has taken the unprecedented step of saying it will keep borrowing costs at almost zero percent at least through mid-2013 to support the economy.

'Not Safe'

"Gold is a trade, gold is a position, gold is volatile, but gold is not safe," Dennis Gartman, an economist, wrote today in his Suffolk, Virginia-based Gartman Letter. "The public is involved in gold, and the cab drivers of the world have bought into it. Now they are being taken out, at high cost."

The Chicago-based CME raised margin requirements after gold futures surged to a record this month and then plunged the most since March 2008. The minimum cash deposit required to trade Comex futures will rise 27 percent to $9,450 per contract in the speculative Tier 1 category at the close of trading today, CME said late yesterday. The maintenance margin will rise to $7,000 from $5,500. The Shanghai Gold Exchange said Aug. 23 it will hike margins from settlement today.

"In our opinion, the margin is not nearly high enough yet," Gartman said. "Proper margining would seem to be closer to $15,000 per contract." Given the volatility in trading, "the exchange needs to protect itself and its clients" from the possibility of a large speculator or two putting "the exchange into jeopardy," he said.

Speculator Holdings

Speculators held a net 218,403 futures and options contracts by Aug. 16, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Positions reached 253,653 contracts by Aug. 2, the most since at least 2006, the data show. The CFTC will update its tally tomorrow.

The 10-day historical volatility for gold futures jumped to 41 percent, the highest level since March 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Following CME's margin increases, silver slumped as much as 35 percent in about three weeks from April 25, when the metal touched a 31-year high of $49.845 an ounce on the Comex.

Gold's surge and decline is similar to silver's earlier this year, John Roque, WJB Capital Group's senior technical analyst, said in a note to clients.

"Gold has some support at $1,700, but it wouldn't surprise us to see the metal retest its last breakout level at $1,580," Roque said.

Gold is still trading above its 200-, 100- and 50-day moving averages. The price is below the 20-day moving average of $1,743.50.

Silver futures for December delivery rose $1.004, or 2.6 percent, to $40.205 on the Comex.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Visa Inc. on Wednesday warned that its revenue and earnings growth will slow in 2012 after new regulations on the fees banks can charge for debit card transactions kick in.

The San Francisco payments network operator repeated an earlier forecast for its current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, for revenue growth between 11 percent and 15 percent and earnings-per-share growth of greater than 20 percent.

Next year, however, Visa said it expects its revenue growth to slow to the high-single-digit to low-double-digit range. The company expects earnings-per-share growth to slow to the mid-to-high teens.

Analysts, on average, were forecasting 11 percent revenue growth and 16 percent earnings growth for 2012.

The slowdown will reflect the rules announced by the Federal Reserve last week that kick in on Oct. 1 and next April. The first will limit the fees that banks can charge retailers for processing debit card transactions. The second will give merchants the power to decide which network handles their transactions.

Together, the two could drive down the revenue for the banks that are Visa's customers. While transaction fees are not paid directly to Visa, it's expected that the network operator will have to reduce some of the fees it charges banks. And since it operates the biggest debit card networks, giving merchants choice to go to other processors will also have an impact.

"We expect that fiscal 2012 will bear the weight of the regulations financially, and in fiscal 2013 revenue growth will regain momentum off of 2012s level," CEO Joseph Saunders said during a conference call to discuss the forecast.

Because Visa's fiscal year ends in September it was able to keep its forecast for the current year. Since the Fed moved the date the fee cap will kick in from July 21 to Oct. 1, it will have no impact on Visa's results for fiscal 2011.

U.S. debit revenue accounts for about 20 percent of the company's overall revenue, Saunders said during the call.

The CEO said Visa prepared for different scenarios while it waited for the Fed to decide on the new debit rules. Now that they are in place, Visa can go forward with its plans.

But Saunders declined to spell out how the company will respond, deferring specifics to late July, when it reports fiscal third-quarter financial results, and October, when it reports for the full year.

He did say, however, that "providing some level of incentives to specific merchants may be an effective strategy" to ensure Visa receives profits from their ability to choose processing networks.

"We will compete vigorously to maintain (the) Visa routing preference and have several strategies we will put into action to achieve this outcome," Saunders said.

For the current year, Visa's forecast translates to revenue of between $8.95 billion and $9.11 billion and earnings of at least $4.84 per share.

That is, however, short of Wall Street's forecasts.

Analysts, on average, are looking for $9.16 billion in revenue, with estimates ranging from $9 billion to $9.3 billion, according to FactSet. They are expecting earnings of $4.91 per share, with estimates ranging from $4.75 to $5.04.

Visa also said that it has completed its $1 billion share repurchase program announced in April. It bought back about 12 million shares at an average price of $77 per share.

Shares in Visa slipped 57 cents to $87.63 in extended trading Wednesday. They ended the regular trading session off 12 cents at $88.20.