Over the long term, if I recall correctly, gold has lagged the stock market significantly, 2.3% real annualized return since 1990 vs. 7.1% for stocks (https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t026-s001-investing-in-gold-10-facts-you-need-to-know/index.html#:~:text=Gold%2C%20meanwhile%2C%20generated%20an%20annualized,annualized%20return%20comes%20to%202.3%25.).

So, if you have plenty and just want to preserve capital, I can understand holding gold. But only if you also don't need cashflow, because gold doesn't provide any of that either.

My plan is to hold mostly stocks with some bonds until I'm within a few years of no longer earning from work enough to cover expenses. Then, I'll start to shift to having enough cash to cover 3 years of excess expenses (expenses above non-work income), plus enough in bonds to cover another 5 years of excess expenses.

It so happens this will likely be a 70/20/10 allocation between stocks, bonds, and cash. Then, when stocks go up, I'll sell enough to cover a year's excess expenses. If stocks go down and bonds go up, I'll sell bonds. If both go down, I'll use some of the cash. Then, when stocks and bonds recover, I'll use them to replenish what I used up from the cash and bonds buckets.

This way, I can weather an 8-year bear market without selling stocks low.

By the way, if everything is down, I'll also be able to drastically reduce spending because I expect over 30% of our budget (more than that, after considering rental income and such) will be discretionary. That means I'd be ok even with a 12-13 year bear.