GOLD surpassed $1,000 an ounce in New York for the first time in almost a year as American investors, hurt by plunging stocks and a deepening recession, sought to protect their wealth.

Gold futures for April delivery rose $25.70, or 2.6 percent, to $1,002.20 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division over the weekend after touching $1,007.70, the highest since March 18.

Gold, the only metal to advance in 2008, has rallied annually since 2000 and is up 13 percent this year.

But global stocks extended an eight-session slide, erasing 54 percent of their market value since the start of last year on concern that the economic slump may worsen and wipe out corporate earnings.

And the Dow Theory, a 125-year-old method for forecasting the market, is telling investors the worst isn’t over for stocks.

The Dow Theory, which holds that simultaneous moves in industrial and transportation shares foreshadow economic activity, indicates the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s drop to a six-year low yesterday may presage more losses.

The Dow industrials slumped to 7,365.67 on concern the deepening recession will force the US government to bail out banks. Adherents of the Dow Theory say the 30-stock gauge will fall farther because the Dow Jones Transportation Average has slipped to the worst level since September 2003.

“When you have that confirmation in both legs, that’s clearly negative,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati.

“There’s some validity to Dow Theory.”

Last week’s retreat left the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the benchmark for US stocks, within 2.3 percent of breaking through its Nov. 20 low to the worst level since 1997.

“The direction of the market is clearly down,” said Richard Moroney, who manages $150 million at Hammond, Indiana-based Horizon Investment Services and edits the Dow Theory Forecasts newsletter.

“We’re holding a lot more cash than we normally do.”

Dow Theory, created by Wall Street Journal co-founder Charles Dow in 1884, argues that transportation companies are harbingers of economic activity. The transportation gauge slipped below its November nadir in January and has kept retreating.

Dow Theory is showing that “the bear market is in force,” said Philip Roth, the New York-based chief technical analyst at Miller Tabak & Co.

“It doesn’t tell you whether it’s going to last another year or another day. It isn’t a forecaster of magnitude, just direction.”

Gold last topped $1,000 in March as interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve propelled the dollar to an all-time low against the euro in July. The metal reached a record $1,033.90 on March 17 before retreating to as low as $681 by October.

Analysts say the rally may continue as investors lose confidence in financial assets.

Stocks and bonds have trailed gold this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of equities has declined 15 percent and the benchmark 10-year US Treasury has returned 0.23 percent. Bloomberg