Gold prices ended the month of March down 2.46%, but ended the quarter up 6.38%. Silver fell 6.23% on the month, but is up 16.18% on the quarter.

One mining CEO, Malcom Norris, and explorer Solomon Gold, told CNBC that gold could spike all the way up to $2,000 per ounce!

As we look forward, our U.S. economists forecast subdued growth and further easing by the Fed in 2012, which should push the market’s expectations of real rates back down near zero basis points and gold prices back to our six-month forecast of $1,840 an ounce,” it added.

As investors look to the Fed chairman for direction, the immediate one is upward price momentum.

The Fed is “likely to hint” at QE3 at its April 25 gathering,

The fall in gold prices has prompted one or more central banks to buy as much as four tonnes of bullion in recent weeks, according to an industry source and a Financial Times report on Friday.

The supply of both gold and silver is rising but not in nearly sufficient amounts to satisfy the growing demand coming from all sides of the world.

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday kept interest rates at record lows and continued a program to swap assets it owns into riskier securities as the central bank downplayed the strength of recent economic data.

Silver prices are outpacing gold this year, prompting cautious investors to wonder how to play the market while guarding against the white metal’s well-worn path of volatility.

Ben Bernanke and the ECB give the go-ahead for a new bull run in gold