By Frank Tang and Steve James

DENVER, Sept 13 (Reuters) - What a difference a year makes.
Bulls have kicked bears out of the gold industry as producers now look forward to bigger profit margins from higher metal prices and lower costs.
A record 850 mining company executives and buy-side fund managers meeting for their annual get-together at the Denver Gold Forum arrived in the Rocky Mountain city in a much better mood after gold went through the psychological $1,000-per-ounce barrier last week.
And with analysts predicting the precious metal will keep rising and possibly hit a new high this year, the outlook is rosier now than when the executives met in Denver last year.
Then, the economy was about to nose-dive and gold miners were grappling with issues like renewing reserves, controlling costs and struggling to put projects into production.
But there's nothing like a recession to send investors rushing to the safe haven of bullion and that's what has happened. Gold has performed just as analysts predicted in the last 12 months -- averaging around $900 an ounce, with a range of $700 to the $1,000 it hit last week.
On Friday, spot gold traded at $1,005 an ounce in New York. Year to date, it was up 15 percent, but still below its record high $1,030.80 set in March 2008.
The sentiment for investing in gold or gold company stocks now is nothing but positive.
"We think margins with the higher gold price will expand," said Brian Hicks, co-fund manager of U.S. Global Investors in San Antonio, Texas.
"Fuel costs are still well below what they were in 2008, so that should help margins, and we've had some relief in terms of labor issues and higher capital costs with some of these mines," he said. "That will help margins as well."
Oil is a major expense in the mining of gold, so with its price falling from a peak of nearly $150 per barrel in the summer of 2008 to $70 now, miners can cut operating costs.
Haytham Hodaly, of Salman Partners in Toronto, was typically bullish: "From a seasonal perspective, gold prices have almost always rallied in the fourth quarter ... anywhere between 5 and 10 percent on average.
"The equities typically lag the precious metals by as much as a month, so I think this is a perfect time for people to increase their exposure to the equities, and I do believe that we will break through $1,000 and head close to $1,100 in the near term," Hodaly said.

Gold got a boost last week when Canada's Barrick Gold , the world's largest producer, said it would issue $3 billion in stock to eliminate its fixed-price gold hedges and part of its floating hedges.
Hedging allows producers to lock-in guaranteed prices for future output, but it can backfire if the price of spot metal rises above the hedged price.
A bull cycle for gold since 2001 has prompted many miners to buy back their own unprofitable hedges in the last several years. Barrick and No. 3 AngloGold Ashanti are the only top producers which still have significant outstanding hedges.
Caesar Bryan, who manages more than $450 million in assets at GAMCO Gold Fund in New York, said that gold stocks as a whole have still not recovered from the Lehman Brothers debacle of last September.
"If gold does well, gold stocks should do even better."
Bryan said that gold equities were attractive because of their low price-to-cash-flow multiples, and that the closely watched Philadelphia Gold & Silver index should be trading at 200. The index is currently at 170.
Gold stocks, however, continue to face tough head winds from the competition of gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold ETF, currently holds 1,077.6 tonnes of gold, which is equivalent to nearly half annual global mine production.
William Rhind, head of sales and marketing for the U.S. division of ETF Securities, an operator of 130 exchange-traded products, says that the performance of gold equities tends to correlate with the stock market.
"With gold, you don't have any management and operational risks," Rhind said. "And gold itself cannot go bankrupt, while mining companies can."
The presenters at the Denver Forum, which runs through Wednesday, will include the world's biggest two producers -- Barrick and Newmont Mining, which is based in Denver. South African giants AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields Ltd are also slated to present.
(Additional reporting by Cameron French in Toronto; Editing by Christian Wiessner and Philip Barbara) Keywords: GOLD/CONFERENCE

(steve.james@thomsonreuters.com; +1 646-223-6013; Reuters Messaging: steve.james.reuters.com@reuters.net)