The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that beaten down shares of gold miners may look like a buying opportunity. The Globe's David Milstead warns bargain hunters, however, to tread carefully. He says certainly a rebound in the price of gold would cause miners' shares to surge. The opposite, however, is also true. The rising cost of mining gold and miners' increasing reliance on debt, mean a gold price that settles below $1,500 an ounce would punish the sector's outlook. Analysts have run "stress tests" to assess investors' risks if gold falls to $1,300 or $1,200 per ounce. Companies like Goldcorp that combine healthy balance sheets with relatively low costs seem best able to weather such a storm. Others with higher debt -- Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining -- appear to have more potential problems. Deutsche Bank's Jorge Beristain issued a report on Monday in which he cut his price targets on major North American miners by an average of more than 30 per cent. He reduced his ratings on Barrick and Kinross Gold to "hold" and on Newmont to "sell." (Goldcorp remained a "hold.") Mr. Beristain figures the price of gold will average $1,600 per ounce over the long term.