Slater, who manages the sector-leading MFM Slater Growth fund, believes it is just a matter of time before the precious metal breaks the $2,000 mark.
"Personally I think the price will keep going up," he said. "It’s still around $100 off its all-time high, but it won’t be long before it goes past its record."
"If it doesn’t do well in this environment, it never will. We have a perfect environment for gold – it typically thrives when real interest rates are negative and investors have a complete lack of faith in government policy."
Slater has little exposure to gold in his Slater MFM Growth and Slater MFM Income funds because it doesn’t fit his investment process; however, he says he holds it in his personal portfolio.
Gold’s dramatic crash from its $1,900 high down to $1,600 back in September sent many investors running for the hills. However, Martin Arnold, senior analyst at ETF Securities, says there has been a steady pick-up in demand in recent weeks.
"A lot of people got nervous about gold after that steep decline back in September," he said. "It seems a lot of investors haven’t really thought about gold even though there are multiple reasons why it should be on their radar."
Performance of S&P GSCI Gold Spot index over 1-yr
Source: FE Analytics
Like Slater, Arnold points to negative real interest rates and uncertainty in the eurozone as the keys to the upward march of the gold price.
"The ECB’s cut of interest rates last week and the Fed’s guarantee that rates will stay low until mid-2013 have shown that negative real interest rates are here to stay," he said.
"As a result we’ve seen an increase in demand for our physically backed gold ETFs. Just on Friday we saw inflows of around $14m."
"Exactly the same thing happened in 2008. After an initial rally, gold came off a little when deleveraging started. However, in the six months after this set-back gold outperformed again."
"It seems to me like exactly the same thing is happening now."
FE Alpha Manager Tom Winnifrith, who heads up the t1ps Smaller Companies Growth fund, believes both gold bullion and gold equities are set for a massive windfall in 2012 and beyond.
"The steep decline that we saw in September was down to two successive margin hikes; indeed, the fact gold only fell by $300 and has bounced back so quickly shows just how resilient it is," he said.
"There is a huge amount of support for the gold price. The major currencies of the western world are in deep, deep trouble. There is no growth in Japan, the recovery in the US is both jobless and anaemic, the UK recovery has run out of steam, and now even Germany has slowed down."
Like many gold funds, Winnifrith's t1ps Smaller Companies Gold portfolio has suffered from the poor performance of gold equities in the last 12 months. According to FE Analytics, the fund has lost 11.26 per cent in the last year.
However, the manager believes gold equities are now due a strong run.
"We're in the same place as we were in 1977," he said. "Back then, gold equities experienced a period of underperformance for the same reasons we're seeing today. Investors were nervous about a crash a few years previously and a surging oil price also had an impact on profit margins."
"However, gold equities then raced past an already rising gold price. It's only a matter of time before we see that happen this time around," he finished.