Hi Clive, Re: haiku..........
I wasn't aware that other page was a "members only" posting option. Sorry about that. Haiku are always welcome here, too.
Re: Gold/Stocks and Decades.................
I recently helped a friend start a 30/30/30/10 portfolio. 30% Growth Index ETF, 30% Real Estate (REIT) ETF, 30% Gold surrogate ETF and 10% cash equivalents. I suggested annual rebalance or to watch for the percentages to deviate by maybe 20% of their starting point (36% high side, 24% low side). The cash sleeve is there to trim if they are feeling excessively motivated by market activity. This is a relatively small account and they're in their '70s. They don't want to be bothered often but promise to look at their statement once in a while to see if the ratios are holding.
It was your bringing up ancient methods and portfolios that had permanence that gave me the idea for them. When I look back 10 year I see there would have been a shift of some of the REIT and Growth over to Gold in 2013. There really wasn't much change until 2019 when Gold started to participate again. It would have done a nice job of funding the Covid market experience with a shift from Gold back to Growth. Possibly there would have been some shifting from REIT to Growth, too, from appearances. Your comments on shifting just once a decade would be even lower maintenance, but I'm not sure how many shifts they would accomplish!
All in all it seemed to be a very low maintenance method of keeping some growth, inflation hedge and an income stream from dividends in a simple strategy. Since it has just been put in place, there's no history. I'll report back periodically on how it goes.