The price of gold fell more than 2% in Thursday’s trading as the release of the minutes from the latest Fed Meeting on April 26th and 27th, indicated the Fed is on course to rate interest in June.

Wednesday’s release sent the dollar higher and gold, which normally trades inversely to the greenback, lower. A raise in interest rates would increase the yield on investments into the Dollar, making the lower yielding assets such as gold a less attractive option.

The fall to below $1250 an ounce, meant prices going beyond a 3-week low as investors fled the safe haven investment in precious metals, and backed the US Dollar to a 7-week high.

Gold prices have risen more than 19% since the start of the year, as a series of soft data releases exposed the vulnerability of the world’s largest economy. The Fed has since reduced its planned interest rate increases for the remainder of the year from four to two.  The gradual route to raising rates is regarded as less of a threat to prices of gold than a more rapid set of increases.

The yellow metal plunged 2.16%, trading at $1264.85, whilst silver plummeted 4.27%, trading at $16.400. Meanwhile, the US Dollar index which measures the US Dollar against a basket of six weighted currencies was up 0.15%, valued at $95.35.