gold futures settled higher wednesday buoyed by havenrelated buying interest after russian president vladimir putin ordered reservists to mobilize and made remarks seen as a threat to use nuclear weapons as he escalated the war in ukraine prices then declined in electronic trading on the back of the federal reserve decision to deliver another interest rate increase of 75 basis points the central bank also announced plans for rates to go sharply higher before the end of the year putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists and warned the west that he wasnt bluffing about using all instruments at russias disposal to protect russias territory in what was seen as a veiled reference to russias nuclear capability president putins announcement on partial mobilization rattled markets wednesday ahead of the fed policy decision said william masters senior sales trader at saxo markets uk gold and the dollar rallied on a flight to havens he said golds gains were relatively modest for the session however a stronger dollar has been a weight on commodity prices along with a sharp push higher in treasury yields a stronger dollar makes commodities priced in the unit more expensive to users of other currencies while higher yields raise the opportunity cost of holding nonyielding assets after gold futures settled wednesday the federal reserve agreed to a third straight interest rate increase raising its benchmark fedfunds rate by 075 percentage point to a range of 3 to 325 the central bank also penciled in another 125 basis points in rate hikes by yearend no surprise here except for those who had feared a full percentage point increase george millingstanley chief gold strategist at state street global advisors told marketwatch the 75 basis point hike was essentially already priced into the financial markets so i am not expecting any significant price moves as a result of this meeting the us dollar strengthened in the immediate aftermath of the policy decision pressuring dollardenominated gold prices the fed policy decision will be followed by decisions from the bank of japan bank of england and swiss national bank on thursday said raffi boyadjian lead investment analyst at xm in comments emailed early wednesday gold futures had settled tuesday at their lowest since april 2020 pressured by the aggression of the fed as well as other central banks including the bank of england and more recently the european central bank and swedens riksbank said rupert rowling market analyst at kinesis money in comments on the market associated press contributed to this article hear from ray dalio at the best new ideas in money festival on sept 21 and sept 22 in new york the hedgefund pioneer has strong views on where the economy is headed