Overall analyst said GOLD will move higher later..now is buying opportunity in market correction.

Gold Could Hit New High By Year-End But now Caught In Commodity-Wide Correction

 “I see gold moving to new highs later this year,” although first they could end up “oversold” during the recent commodity-wide correction lower, says Ira Epstein, director of the Ira Epstein division of the Linn Group. “As I see it, nothing has materially changed to alter gold’s role or longer-term price direction,” he says. “That doesn’t mean that outside forces can’t pull down gold in the near term and change the short term trend…However, given that the U.S. has not changed its monetary policy, things really haven’t changed.” Still, the entire commodity complex has corrected lower, he says. “Keep in mind that funds that trade commodities tend to move their investment in waves,” he says. “The wave that carried commodity prices up to new all-time highs has temporarily peaked and prices are now moving down across the whole commodity spectrum in unison.”

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Barclays: Commodity Sell-Off ‘Represents A Potential Buying Opportunity’

(Kitco News) - Barclays Capital sees the recent commodity-wide sell-off lately as a buying opportunity. Analysts describe the retreat as a repeat of a pattern seen several times during a commodity price recovery that began in early 2009. For copper, often viewed as a good gauge of the health of the global economy, fundamentals appear to be improving, with a big rebound in China’s copper semis output in March, draws of 55,000 metric tons in Shanghai Futures Exchange stocks in the last seven weeks and stronger Asian premiums, Barclays says. Regional Purchasing Managers Indexes this week showed expansion in manufacturing activity.  “Finally, we would highlight the fact that yesterday’s price declines have not been accompanied by any significant move in price spreads within individual commodity markets,” Barclays says. “These are still reflecting strong demand, sluggish supply and low inventories in many sectors. Brent crude remains in backwardation at the front end of the curve, the aluminum cash-to-three months contango tightened and lead remains in backwardation as well. In our view, the current sell-off represents a potential buying opportunity, particularly in those 

markets that we currently favor including, copper, corn, far forward crude oil, aluminum and gold.“ However, Barclays says it does not put silver on this list.

HSBC: ‘We Sense That The Bullion Price Could Be Close To Bottoming’

(Kitco News) -- While further price declines in precious metals are possible, “we sense that the bullion price could be close to bottoming,” says HSBC. “We expect emerging-market buying to increase at these lower prices. Merchants already reported an increase in physical demand for gold and silver. Premiums on silver increased, implying an increase in local demand. The power of Indian buying can be immense.” Gold like will stabilize before silver, HSBC says. Any further dollar weakness is likely to help gold stabilize, the bank says. “As the world’s supreme hard asset, gold logically is inversely correlated with the world’s supreme paper asset, the USD.” The relationship is not necessarily lockstep, but holds in the long run, says the bank. One factor that has helped gold in the past is concern about the ability of the U.S. to repay its debt.  “If the gold rally is at least partly predicated on long-term credit concerns, then the long-term picture still looks positive for bullion.”