By Pham-Duy Nguyen Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Gold fell, heading for the first weekly decline since mid-August, as some investors sold after the metal failed to reach a record. Gold traded below $1,000 for the second straight day after climbing to $1,025.80 on Sept. 17, nearing the all-time high of $1,033.90 set on March 17, 2008. Before today, gold rose 13 percent this year, heading for a ninth-straight annual gain. “If I’m long gold, I’ve got to be pretty discouraged that gold couldn’t get anything going above $1,000,” said Matt Zeman, a LaSalle Futures Group metals trader in Chicago. “All these people who’ve piled into gold in the past few weeks are going to be running for the exits.” Gold futures for December fell $5.70, or 0.6 percent, to $993.20 an ounce at 11:49 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. A close at that price would be a 1.7 percent decline for the week, the first since Aug. 14. Before this week, speculators and index funds had never been so bullish. Since the start of the year, so-called net-long positions, or bets on rising gold futures, had almost doubled to a record 235,647 in the week ended Sept. 15, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Sept. 18. Gold has declined since Sept. 23, when policy makers at the Federal Reserve signaled they can control accelerating prices. The Fed kept its target lending rate at a record-low range of zero to 0.25 percent, where it has been since December. “The bulls in the gold market have been trading on the belief that there will be inflation,” said Tom Hartmann, an AltaVest Worldwide Trading Inc. analyst in Mission Viejo, California. “The Fed took some air out of the market.” Bullish Outlook Fourteen of 21 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 67 percent, said gold would rise next week. Five forecast lower prices, and two were neutral. “There is still room for net-long positions to be built before the inevitable liquidation of positions takes the metal lower,” Deutsche Bank AG said in a report. “We continue to believe that gold fundamentals are attractive, given long-term inflation threats.” In another New York market, silver futures for December delivery dropped 10 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $16.195 an ounce, heading for a 5.1 percent decline for the week. Before today, the price gained 44 percent this year. To contact the reporter on this story: Pham-Duy Nguyen in Seattle at pnguyen@bloomberg.net.

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