By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was down on Wednesday morning in Asia as U.S. Treasury yields rose and the upcoming from the U.S. Federal Reserve dented demand for the yellow metal.

By 11:47PM ET (23:47 GMT), they were $1,865.57 lower than the previous day (3:47 GMT).

The Benchmark has been stabilized following a retreat from the previous session’s 3% mark.

Widely expected, the Fed will announce an aggressive interest rate increase to combat high inflation as part of its later-in-the-day policy decision. The Federal Open Market Committee will release its policy statement, followed by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s news conference.

Investors widely expect a decision on raising the benchmark overnight interest rates alongside details on reducing the Fed’s $8.9 trillion balance sheet.

“A 50-basis point hike is now priced in by markets… if the statement has a still more hawkish bias, then gold is likely to come under pressure once again,” OANDA senior analyst Jeffrey Halley told Reuters.

“If the statement remains mostly unchanged in its guidance, then a short-term recovery to $1,880 is possible as the dollar is likely to fall.”

Although the, which moves in an opposite direction to gold, gained a little on Wednesday, it remained at or near 20-year highs.

On Thursday, across the Atlantic, each country will announce its policy decisions.

Russian troops shelled eastern Ukraine Tuesday as part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, which began on February 24th. In the meantime, Russia is working to impose new sanctions on Moscow. This includes oil-related ones.

Other precious metals saw a 0.1% decline, but was almost unchanged at $961.62, and edged up 0.2%.