Report: Gold could dip as low as $1,100 this year

London--A new report states that the per-ounce price of gold might have already hit its high for the year and could briefly sink as low as $1,100 in the coming months.

According to the 2014 Gold and Silver Mining Focus recently released by a London-based organization called Metals Focus, the price of gold rose 16 percent between the end of December and mid-March, reaching a six-month high of $1,392.

A number of factors drove the price increase, including weaker-than-expected economic news in the United States, which “shook some investors’ confidence in the smooth-recovery thesis,” the report states.

However, Metals Focus believes that the metal already has hit its high for the year and that the gold price will sink in the coming months.

The company said it is not ruling out a “brief drop” to as low as $1,100 per ounce. Driving the price downward are a number of factors, including the U.S. recovery gaining momentum as consumers emerge after a terrible winter and the Federal Reserve’s ongoing reduction in bond purchases, which is “easing concerns about fiscal situations on both sides of the Atlantic,” the report states.

Metals Focus said that it expects the price of silver, which is governed in part by the movement of gold, to follow a similar price path, with the full-year average falling just short of $20 an ounce.

The expected decline in precious metal prices in 2014 is a continuation of what the market saw last year.

According to the numbers cited by Metals Focus, gold prices fell 15 percent between 2012 and 2013, from $1,669 an ounce to $1,411 an ounce, while the per-ounce price of silver was down 23 percent year-over-year, from $31.15 to $23.79.

Metals Focus is under the auspices of The Denver Gold Group Inc. and Balerna, Switzerland-based refinery Valcambi Suisse, with support from a number of companies including Johnson Matthey, London bullion merchants Baird & Co. and Rand Refinery.

The Denver Gold Group is a non-profit established in 1989 as a trade organization that promotes investment in, and education about, precious metal equities. The group represents seven-eighths of the world’s publicly traded gold and silver mining companies.