You cannot simply divorce cause and effect. To do so is to step away from reason and science and step in to the world of magic and shamanism. Everything is built on cause and effect.
Chaos theory does not abrogate cause and effect; At it's simplest it merely says that there are so many myriad of causes that they cannot all be possibly taken in to account or calculated, and therefore the effect cannot be calculated and appears to be random.
If you must then explain to yourself why the Gold price isn't double or so now. Look at the world economy compared to 2007, Is it better or worse. The so called fundamentals do not sync with your exceptions/Gold price
The fundamentals of cause and effect on the price of gold certainly do sync. Most simply aren't taking in to account sufficient number causes to come to a conclusion, they try to simplistically look at one or two big causes without the half dozen or so other little ones wich may offset them. If half the equation is missing then how can the answer we arrive at be accurate?
You say the price of gold should have gone up because the economy is worse than 2007. By what measure is it worse? The Dow Jones average is far higher now than in 2007. Many people would use that yardstick to say that the economy is actually better, and given gold's propensity to inversely mirror that figure there's your answer as to why gold hasn't gone up right there. Of course, that's far too simplistic a view and I'm not proposing that as the only reason, but it is illustrative that if we don't factor enough causation in to the equation, or simply pick the causes we want to look at, then we can't possibly produce a realistic effect.
The people who produce and, unswervingly stick to these charts are effectively saying one of two things: Either cause and effect don't matter, or there are so many causes that they can't be accurately predicted and therefore we have to look at effect patterns instead.
The first option is completely illogical and so wrong headed that I can't take it seriously for one moment. The second option is very valid and I'm sure that Armstrong and Nenner are subscribing to that theory. However, that doesn't discount cause and effect. If a big enough cause comes along then it will have an effect and if it's a large 'black swan' cause that has the momentum to overcome the other smaller causes then the charts will not catch it because it will be a departure from the norm.
It seems to me that these charts are very interesting and can be remarkably accurate for a certain period of time, but I've no doubt that they will depart at some point. There are various charts for gold prices on the internet that go back hundreds of years in some cases and, apart from relatively short time periods, there are no discernable repeating patterns that I can see. If people like Armstrong are totally correct then I'd expect a bit more long term impirical evidence, I don't see much. That's not to say they can't be remarkably accurate over a (relatively) short period, but be prepared for the chart to 'stop working' at some point.