Investments, by way of standard market forces, after a 10-year bullish cycle, ultimately goes down into bearish momentum. But not in the case of gold futures, as prices are foreseen to further shoot up and hit $2,000 per ounce by mid-2012.

The price of gold bullion is going towards its 11th year of consecutive annual gains. Fears of a fiscal recession of pandemic proportions will all the more boost the yellow metal to get more expensive, displacing the boom-bust cycle norm.

Tony Hall of Duet Commodities Fund said gold prices will maintain its steady gains even as the United States desperately avoids falling into a recession.

"The decline is more of a healthy retracement than a change of the trend," Hall told Bloomberg News. "I do think the trend is still in place and in the next three to six months we're going to reach the $2,000 per ounce mark."

Gold remained in demand last week, closing at $1,765 per ounce Friday, some 34 per cent increase from the lowest level of $1,318 per ounce in January. The yellow metal posted record high prices at $1,890 per ounce in mid-August this year.

In 2008 the price gold registered at $865 реr ounce. But between stocks and gold, investors favor the latter yellow metal because of its much greater stability not only during 2008 but even till now. Moreso that gold serves as a psychological haven for investors to store wealth during turbulent economic times.

This year, the gains achieved in prices of gold were largely fuelled by the debt crises in the euro zone and the United States, fears of inflation and the weakening U.S. dollar.

And with the global economic leaders yet to get its act together to address the continuing global financial uncertainty, gold prices will remain up in the near term.

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