Gold at 4-month low, down in electronic trade

San Franciso (Nov 20)    Gold futures settled lower on Wednesday, marking their lowest close since July, but prices fell further in electronic trading following the Federal Reserve's minutes from the central bank's October meeting. The minutes, which came after prices on Comex settled for the session, showed that officials were considering reducing the size of the Fed's asset-purchase program, which has helped support prices for gold. December gold to settle at $1,258 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the lowest close for a most-active contract since July 10, according to FactSet data.

In after hours trading at 2:25pm EST, spot gold was down $23 at $1,251, while spot silver lost 35 cents to$20.08 in volatile trading.