By Barbara Kollmeyer
Market Watch
In one of the first, if not the first, calls on gold GCG4 +0.04% this year, Bank of America Merrill Lynch slashed its average 2014 forecast for the shiny stuff by 11% to $1,150 an ounce on Thursday, with a warning it could get even uglier.
Gold plunged 28% in 2013 to just above $1,200, snapping a 12-year annual winning streak and recording its worst annual performance in nearly three decades. Silver, which also didn’t escape the chop from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, suffered a 36% loss in 2013, its worst since at least the early 1980s. The investment bank cut its forecast for silver SIH4 -0.12% by 21% to $18.38 an ounce.
On Nov. 26, the bank forecast gold for 2014 at $1,294 an ounce, and silver at $26.38 an ounce.