Commodities: Gold

ANALYSTS say the gold price will continue to slip lower over the medium term as it maintains a downtrend in place since the stock market crash of October 1987. In the short term dollars 320 an ounce is achievable. Some analysts target a decline towards dollars 300 with a move to its 1985 low around dollars 285 an ounce not ruled out.

'It is only a matter of time before you see a further decline to dollars 300,' Lawrence Eagles, an analyst at the futures broker GNI, said.

Gold prices have been on a downtrend since their 1987 peak of dollars 503. The trend has slowed in the past two years, but remains firmly in place, chartists say.