These days I am feeling very bullish on the prospects for gold – and I would not be surprised to see prices double or possibly do even better over the next three-to-five years.

Moreover, there is even some chance gold prices will break into record high territory (exceeding $1,924 an ounce) later this year or next.

I expect that the U.S. and other major economies will perform poorly for several years to come with recession or near-recession business conditions forcing the Fed and other leading central banks to pursue reflationary monetary policies and low interest rates – a bullish long-term mix for gold that promises stagflation and much higher prices for gold later in the decade.

From its all-time high just over $1,924 in September 2011 to its subsequent low point near $1,080 last year, the price of gold suffered a loss of some 44 percent.

But so far this year, the yellow metal has marched to a different drummer, recovering 15 percent from last year’s low point to reach its recent high around $1,240 an ounce.

This should have been enough to declare an end to the four-year bear market – but gold’s naysayers thus far remain unwilling to declare the start of a new bull market.

Instead, my former colleagues at Goldman Sachs (and traders at many other big institutional players in the gold market) have been quite outspoken recently predicting a further decline in the metal’s price to as low as $1,000 an ounce.

In contrast to this pervasive bearishness, I’m feeling increasingly bullish on gold – for this year . . . and for the longer term.

First of all, the technical picture looks increasingly supportive with buyers ready to accumulate both physical metal and paper proxies just under the market. Indeed, in recent days, as gold retreated a bit from its short-term high briefly over $1240 an ounce, buying interest has picked up nicely with support emerging as the price dipped toward the psychologically important $1200 level.