gold prices finished with a modest loss on wednesday then extended their decline into the electronic trading session as investors assessed minutes from the federal reserves latest policy meeting overall the minutes showed that all fed officials were supporting further increases in the interest rates gold prices settled at their lowest since early january then continued to move lower in electronic trading after minutes from the fed meeting that ended on feb 1 were released a halfhour after gold futures settled for the session the federal open market committee meeting minutes showed that some officials were concerned about recent easing in financial conditions but overall fed officials supported further increases in the interest rates the us central bank hiked interest rates by 25 basis points at that meeting bringing its policy rate target to a range of 45 to 475 the fomc minutes are relevant in terms of hints on the pace of interestrate hikes or a possible ending or pause in the rate increases said chintan karnani director of research at insignia consultants gold has fallen due to an expectation of a rising interest rate trend until june or july he said higher treasury yields and a stronger us dollar have weighed on the price of gold in recent weeks both reflect expectations for higher interest rates from the federal reserve the ice us dollar index  a gauge of the bucks strength against a basket of rivals was up 02 at 104349 the yield on the 10year treasury note was down 51 basis points at 3902 st louis fed president james bullard last week said he had joined cleveland fed president loretta mester in advocating a 50 basis point interest rate hike at the central banks jan 31feb 1 meeting neither bullard nor mester are voting members of the ratesetting fomc this year theres been some talk that policy makers are looking to return to 50 basis point rate hikes again said fawad razaqzada a market analyst at city index and forexcom in commentary ahead of the fed minutes but thats unlikely he said as the fed has already tightened its policy aggressively and will now go in with smaller increments so as to avoid an unwanted hard landing still markets have realized that the fed wants to keep its contractionary monetary policy in place longer than they had expected at the back end of last year and start of this year owing to further improvement in us data and sticky inflation said razaqzada correspondingly the dollar has found good support and thats a major factor weighing on buckdenominated gold he said