GOLD PRICE forecasts by analysts competing in the LBMA 2014 competition predicted an average 14% drop during 2014 on Tuesday morning.

Spot gold prices meantime gave back Friday's rally, trading below $1245 per ounce as silver prices fell to an 8-session low beneath $20.

Quoted in the London Bullion Market Association 's new 2014 forecast, "Has the floor been found in gold?" asks Tom Kendall, the head of precious metals research at Swiss investment bank and London market-maker Credit Suisse, who declared the End of an Era for Gold in a Feb.2013 report to clients.

"No, is our unequivocal answer...A strengthening US economy will likely see [rising] yields in a low inflation environment...On its current trend, gold will trade below $1000 before the end of the year," says Kendall, one of the three most bearish analysts, who see the price touching $950 in 2014.

"The key danger for gold," agrees UBS's precious metals strategist Edel Tully, who won the LBMA's gold price forecast in 2011, "lies with a market focus shifting from QE tapering to pricing in US interest rate hikes.

"A return to [gold miner] hedging also threatens," says Tully, forecasting a gold price range of $1045-1400 with an average of $1200, in line with the LBMA forecast's consensus.

The winner in gold for both 2012 and 2013, René Hochreiter now sees gold trading in a range of $1050-1250 per ounce – tighter than the 28-analyst consensus of $1067-1379.

Overall, says Hochreiter of Johannesberg-based mining finance consultancy Allan Hochreiter Pty Ltd, the 2014 gold price will average $1150, down from last year's average of $1411. The consensus average is for $1219.

Hochreiter is more bearish on silver, in which he also won in 2013, now forecasting an average 2014 price of $17.00, down from last year's $23.79, with a wide trading range of $12-23 per ounce.

"Silver is notoriously volatile and prone to short covering rallies and heavy bouts of long liquidation," says Robin Bhar at Societe Generale, the only other LBMA-member analyst amongst the 25 covering silver to forecast such a wide range, and again seeing volatility between $12 and $23 per ounce.

Despite "some investor appetite for silver" in 2014, says Bhar, "much of [the market] surplus will have to go into industry or dealer stocks."

The average platinum price will be flat at $1490, according to the average forecast for the LBMA's 2014 competition.

Palldium – the only precious metal to rise in 2013 – will add almost 7% to average $775 per ounce, according to the analysts' mean forecast.