By Nicholas Larkin March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Gold may decline on concern that a strengthening dollar will curb demand for the metal as an alternative investment, a survey showed. Ten of 20 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 50 percent, said bullion would fall next week. Six forecast higher prices and four were neutral. Gold for delivery in April was down 1.5 percent for this week at $1,091 an ounce at noon in New York yesterday. The dollar reached a 10-month high against the euro yesterday as European Union leaders met in Brussels to try to assist Greece’s efforts to cut its budget deficit. Concern over the ability of European nations including Portugal and Greece to reduce deficits has dragged the euro down this year. Gold typically moves inversely to the dollar. “The underlying problems of heavily indebted euro zone economies are overshadowing everything at the moment and weighing heavily on the single currency,” Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London, said in a report. “The euro will still suffer and could still drag gold a tad lower.” The red bars on the attached chart are derived by subtracting bearish forecasts from bullish estimates, with readings below zero signaling that most respondents expect a decline. The green line shows the gold price. The data shown are as of March 19. The weekly gold survey has forecast prices accurately in 174 of 304 weeks, or 57 percent of the time. This week’s survey results: Bullish: 6 Bearish: 10 Neutral: 4 --With assistance from Kim Kyoungwha in Singapore. Editors: John Deane, Stuart Wallace. To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Larkin in London at nlarkin1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stuart Wallace at swallace6@bloomberg.net. Sponsored Links

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