Bank of America Merrill Lynch maintained its 12-month gold price forecast of $2,000 per ounce

The gold price held steady near $1,624 per ounce Friday closing while concerns over a global economic slowdown continued to weigh on financial markets. The spot price of gold climbed to as high as $1,635.80 in overnight trading, but relinquished its gains as the U.S. dollar moved higher against a basket of the world’s leading currencies.
The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), a proxy for the gold price and the world’s largest gold ETF, dipped 0.4% to $157.02 per share in pre-market activity.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch maintained its 12-month gold price forecast of $2,000 per ounce despite the yellow metal’s weakness in recent weeks. In a note to clients, the firm wrote that “It is worth noting that falling quotations were not accompanied by substantial outflows from physically backed exchange traded funds particularly in recent days. Hence, the correction was not necessarily driven by a broad-based reassessment of fundamentals.”
Bank of America Merrill Lynch went on to say that ongoing “structural problems” in Europe and the U.S. were bullish for gold. Furthermore, the firm predicted that negative real interest rates will remain in place for the foreseeable future in many of the world’s developed economies.

Gold  should  be treated as a  long term investment .