CHICAGO, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Gold futures on the COMEX Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange declined for the third floor trading session on Wednesday, but rallied quickly during the electric trading after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced surprisingly to buy a large amount of longer-term Treasuries to help the economy recover.

    Gold price for April delivery was down 27.70 U.S. dollars, or 3 percent, to settle at 889.10 dollars an ounce. However, in the electric trading time after trading floor closed, the precious metal soared to as high as 954 dollars, more than 70 dollars away from the intraday and 2-month lowest level of 882.70 dollars. Analysts ascribed the big decline early in the day to reduced safe-haven demand, as investors continued to move funds away from the metal.

    About an hour after the COMEX floor session closed, the Federal Reserve announced in a statement to expectedly keep the key interest rate unchanged between zero and 0.25 percent. But what surprised the market is Fed committed to buy 300 billion dollars in longer-term Treasuries to help the U.S. economy recover. The central bank also is going to purchase more mortgage-backed securities and agency debt.

    This decision is considered to create more money to buy national debt, which means accelerating the inflation and weighs on the dollar. The dollar index was down nearly 3 percent and the dollar rate versus euro dropped sharply to a 2-month low.

    The recovery of gold's safe-haven appeal helped the precious metal amazingly surge almost 60 dollars in only two hours during the electric trading time.

    In the floor trading, May silver closed at 11.935 dollars per ounce, losing 73.5 cents. April platinum fell 9.40 dollars to 1,042.80 dollars per ounce.