UNDER selling pressure from all quarters, the price of gold slumped to three-year lows yesterday. Gold's prospects were unlikely to get any cheerier by the year's end, analysts said.

"In the short term, prices will slowly erode away, and rallies will be increasingly sold into. We're definitely heading south," said metals analyst Mr Ted Arnold of Merrill Lynch.

Bullion fixed at $367.40 an ounce yesterday afternoon, the lowest fixing since November 1993, after slipping beneath the psychological $370 an ounce level overnight.

Prices have been declining steadily since a blistering rally pushed them to a peak of $418 an ounce in February. But over the past two weeks gold's fall has speeded up dramatically amid overwhelmingly bearish market sentiment.

Dealers and analysts have noted that mining houses, particularly in major gold producer, Australia, have been in a panic to sell their output forward and lock in prices as the gold price sinks lower.