As I write this, a troy ounce of Gold will set you back one thousand, one hundred and seventy nine of your hard earned US dollars. For our English readers – and those who can't think in troy ounces – 31 grams of gold will cost you the best part of 708 pounds. If you look back to January 2008, you could have got yourself that ounce for just $800 (a bit over £400 with exchange rates as they were). Sticking to dollars for the moment, that's about a 50% increase. But why?

I started writing my second article about support and resistance, intending to talk about cognitive biases, self fulfilling prophecies and the like. Then, while writing a fairly simple Excel simulation to illustrate a point I was making, I came across something quite odd. Read on to find out more.