gold climbed on wednesday to turn higher for the week as treasury yields slipped along with the dollar then extended those gains into the electronic trading session as investors weighed the federal reserves decision to lift interest rates as expected the us central bank also said it remained highly attentive to inflation risks leaving the door open to further rate hikes gold prices finished higher wednesday finding support from weakness in the dollar and treasury yields then moved up a bit more shortly after the feds policy announcement the federal reserve on wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of one percentage point to a range of 52555 the highest rate in 22 years in electronic trading shortly after the decision august gold was at 197120 up modestly from golds settlement price rate hikes tend to suppress gold prices in the near term as higher rates support the us dollar said jerry braakman president and chief investment officer of first american trust after the fed decision however the ice us dollar index was down 02 at 10119 while the yield on the 10year treasury was at 38895 down from 3911 on tuesday higher rates ultimately will increase the risk of recession by slowing economic activity in the us said braakman in the medium term well see a high probability of the economy either entering recession or being stuck in stagflation gold does well in both scenarios he said the fed decision which was released about a half hour after the settlement for comex gold was the first of a series of policy announcements from major global central banks including the european central bank and bank of japan due out this week with little new clarity on the path or pattern of future fed rate hikes the market will focus on the fed press conference for details on path of rates or whether the fed is in a holding pattern said rob haworth senior investment strategist at us bank asset management this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal