Gold experts continue to see bleaker days ahead for the yellow metal, once considered a safe haven.

Ric Deverall of Credit Suisse forecast the price of gold would further dip to $1,100 in 2013 and even plunge more to $1,000 in the next five years.

"Gold is going to get crushed ... The need to buy gold for wealth preservation fell down and the probability of inflation on a one- to three-year horizon is significantly diminished," Bloomberg quoted Mr Deverall.

"When gold is going up, it looks like a great idea to buy more gold. And when it's going down, do you really think risk-averse central bankers are going to try and catch the knife? No," he said.

Besides gold, also suffering a battering is silver as a large sell order lowered prices for the metal 9 per cent from Friday's close to $20.84 a troy ounce in early trading, although it eventually increased to $21.54.

Brokers explained that silver prices have a tendency to mirror gold prices, but the fluctuations may be larger, resulting also in a dull prospect for the metal in the longer term.

"After nearly a decade of rising silver prices, we expect the combination of growth (of) mine supply, and sluggish demand to continue to keep silver prices under pressure, though volatility will remain a characteristic of the market," The Financial Times quoted Citigroup analyst Jason Sappor.

Gold prices dipped to a one-month low of $1,338.95 a troy ounce, just a few dollars away from the two-year record low of $1,321.35 in April.

The unexplainable decline of gold, despite attempts by central banks to boost the price of the yellow metal in the first quarter of 2013, led to speculations of manipulation in the market.

BusinessWeek, quoting Randall Forsyth at Barron, pointed to the suspicious sales of gold on Friday, April 12, that resulted in an immediate 5 per cent plunge in gold prices and another round of gold dumping on the next business day, April 15, causing a 9 per cent collapse in gold prices.

The suspicious selling of gold resumed on Friday, May 17, as the equivalent of 17 tonnes were sold on the New York Comex in two big transactions in the morning, causing a 2.25 per cent slump in the SPDR Gold Trust ETF on Friday at 131.07, munch lower than the 131.30 close on April 15.

Gavin Thomas, managing director of Kingsgate, a mid-level mining company, blamed the decline of gold prices on "smart guys with computers
for attacking gold price, causing Kingsgate's share prices to also plummet drastically to $1.65 from $5 a year ago.

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