UniCredit Sets New 2012 Price Target Of $1,600

``Jochen Hitzfeld, the most accurate gold forecaster tracked by Bloomberg in the last three quarters, in which the analyst raised his estimate for the metal’s average price next year by 12 percent to $1,400 an ounce, and for 2012 to $1,600. As the full report below indicates, the surge will be helped by concern about the effect of government economic- stimulus plans and speculation about increased demand in China, the world’s second-largest buyer after India. Hitzfeld also is so daring as to think what will happen when actual demand, and not central bank interventions, sets the price of gold: "gold supply will increasingly be determined by investors. Twenty years from now, investors will probably find it hard to imagine that there was once a time when jewelry demand determined one of the world’s most important asset classes. If investors were to switch only 1% of the global market capitalization of equities and bonds into gold, at the current gold price of around USD 1,250 per troy ounce, this would translate into demand of 36,000 tons.''