Are these dots connected?

First dot:

Crude oil for October delivery rose $6.01 to close at $97.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange

Second dot:

the price of gold notched the biggest one-day advance ever. Gold for delivery in December increased as much as $90.40, or 11.6 percent, to $870.90 an ounce

one of the functions gold serves for investors is it's a source of liquidity in a time of crisis. That's why people want gold, because if things get really nasty in the financial markets: "I've got gold, I can sell to raise cash."

Third dot:

"There's no God-given gift of a 'AAA' rating, and the U.S. has to earn it like everyone else." That's the word from S&P's John Chambers, the chairman of Standard & Poor's sovereign ratings committee.

(Curiously, that dot wasn't mentioned in this story in MarketWatch: S&P affirms U.S. 'AAA/A-1+' sovereign rating)


Fourth Dot:

The cost of insuring against default on 10-year US Treasuries jumped to an all-time high of 30 basis points yesterday, as measured by the credit default swaps (CDS) on the derivatives markets. Germany is at 13, and France is 20.

"This is historically significant because we have never seen anything like it before," Daniel Pfaender, sovereign credit strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort.

"What we don't know yet is whether this a liquidity issue or whether it reflects the credibility of the US financial system."