If so, what is your rationale, and what has your experience been?

I have some limited indirect exposure. But I do not hold any gold / precious metals funds or stocks at this time..
My experience: Gold / PC miners are explosive (no pun intended). There is a string of 5 consecutive years (2011-2015) where most gold / precious metals mining funds lost money every year, losing about 90% of value over those 5 years. Breathtaking. But gold is prone to sharp “up” years as well. A mining fund can gain 50% + in a good year.
Performance / Yahoo / Click the “show more” tab to pull up longer term performance for both OPGSX and the broader fund category.
I won’t touch the miners at my age. They are more volatile than the metal. (Albeit - those in the know say the miners are currently undervalued relative to the metal.) Like @Derf I own PRPFX. One of my CEFs has a bit of exposure to the miners. When I feel like gambling I buy a little GLTR. It combines gold bullion with some silver and platinum using derivatives. Don’t feel like gambling right now. Prices look rich to me.
Rationale for owning / not owning? When rising sharply gold is cited as a hedge against inflation and a “safe haven” during times of war or social upheaval. Also as a way of diversifying. When falling, critics say it hasn’t done nearly as well as equities longer term, does’t generate any income, can be difficult to trade (very narrow market) and is expensive to store.

We haven't held any gold/metals related since 1979 - early 1980's. The below charts are gold miners, gold and SPY for a reference.
GDX vs GLD vs SPY chart 2006 to present
Chart August 2008 - August 2010, 2 years during 2008 market melt
Chart COVID period, January 2020 - January 2022
Chart Ukraine invasion, January, 2022 - July, 2024
Chart YTD
NOTE: a fellow I worked with for 30 years was/is a guns and gold kinda person.
He became so freaked out with the market melt in 2008, that he cashed out a portion of his T-IRA to purchase physical gold at a local coin dealer store. That wasn't a good plan.

Studies have indicated exploiting the momentum factor can generate alpha.
Skilled traders who use momentum may be able to harvest some of this alpha.
Numerous studies also indicate active trading often leads to poor performance.
I contend the vast majority of individual investors should create a sensible investment
plan and then strive to minimize trading activity.

I agree with the above and what I have been posting for many years.
On the other hand, I also posted that most investors should use up to 5-7 funds and rarely trade.
What I have seen on several sites for over 15 years is the worst of both. Too many funds and too many trades without any consistency, and many times trading at the worst time.
Remember, create a system, test and retest, make changes until it is worth it, and stick to it. Trading is like swimming; practice makes you better, but trading randomly doesn't make sense.
Hint: valuation and low fund expense ratio should not lead your trading and why there are investors who have been holding Value and EM in the last 15 years.

Some explanations for the chart:
There is 50-yr worth of data color coded for 5 decades.
The solid line is the best-fit line. So, it says, for example, that if the initial yield was 5% (read on the horizontal axis), the approximate TR in 5-year forwards could be expected to be 5.2% (read on the vertical axis); the range of TR was 4.2-6.0% and the period was 2000s.
But there is scatter around the solid line with large scatterings (notable undershots) in 1970s (an era of very high yields) and 2010s (an era of very low yields). But much of the scattering is in a narrow band.
R^2 of 88% or 0.88 means r of 0.94. So, this linear regression should be considered good for these data points.
Possible criticisms:
1. The US Agg Bond Index has had variable duration that were different from the 5-year forward period used for the study.
2. Such linear regressions may work better for intermediate-term Treasuries, but the US Agg Bond Index is less than half in government bonds (Treasuries, Agencies) with the rest in corporate and securitized bonds.

Ah, yes; I should have used Schwab. ER of .035% = almost free !
SWLGX M* performance
We're only talking 10% of an entire portfolio.

Thanks, Equalizer. Blackrock will make their ER one way or the other. I am assuming they did not write the collar and so whether the collar was mispriced (and thus offering us a higher cap) is not their problem. They would want the cap to be as high as possible so they load up on AUM (more fees). Yesterday's closing price was at a premium of 0.53%.

BaluBalu,
Just meant that market have 75-80% upside bias on one year returns, so that why Blackrock figured it would be a good bet on their part.

Thanks @Devo. if we are to earn the dividends, that is another 1.4%, for a total of 12% return if we the full cap is realized at the end. I will take that.
@equalizer,
"Long term 100 year 1 year rolling returns shows market up about 75% of time and probably up 80% of time using last 40 years."
Looks like you did not complete your thought or at least you did not say all of what you were thinking. Please elaborate / expand / conclude.
Thanks.

Why momentum investing work?
See (link).

For MAXJ, looks like on June 28 they started fund with IVV at 547 and bought July 2025 puts at 547 and sold July 2025 calls at 608, which is about 11.1% upside minus the 0.5% fee and we get the 10.6% upside. Would have to check prices for this strategy over last 20 years to determine if 10.6% is at top of range. Suspect that during 2008 timeframe this strategy would pay out 2-3%?
Seems like a reasonable strategy at todays prices…
Long term 100 year 1 year rolling returns shows market up about 75% of time and probably up 80% of time using last 40 years.
.

@sma3
Yes, I was still there, under Baker. A reasonable, intelligent man. He is no Trumpster-ite, for sure. Greed is always and forever a bad thing, even if it's perfectly legal.

@crash
We lived in CT, run as a one party state for decades. Budget deficits, huge government worker ( all unionized) pension and retiree health care deficits ( over $65,000 per person with a declining population). The only thing that saved them was iron clad "Guard rails" requiring a rainy day fund and any surplus to be put into deficit. Now Unions want to remove both.
Initially MA seemed much better with a moderate GOP Governor Baker ( who won by 33% margin in 2018) , although the dem controlled legislature is ranked as the least transparent in the US.
Baker stepped down. Trumpites took over GOP in 2022 and their candidate lost by 30%! so the Trumpites lost 60% of the electorate in 4 years!
Now we have a one party state. Taxes have doubled. New income tax surcharge 4% over $500,000. Mansion tax 2% on sales of over $1,000,000. People are talking about Taxachusetts again
A one party government is bad no matter who it is

@Devo,
Please check out MAXJ holdings. Investing in IVV (not Treasuries) and using a collar (selling calls at the cap and buying a put at the buffer). Would love your insight into why MAXJ has gone for holding IVV when it could have held Treasuries easily and simply, as in your post. What could be their thinking? E.g., Is it that they can not sell naked calls without holding some variation of the underlying?
https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/products/337965/ishares-large-cap-max-buffer-jun-etf
Please comment on how the effective Cap can drop if more inflows come in and the collar for newer assets costs them more. Fund started with $10m and now at 24m Assets.
Looks like Blackrock is trying to out compete the competition. Good for us in the short run.

Thanks, @equilizer.
Innovators has six 100% buffer ETFs, four of which are July products. 2, 1, & 0.5 yr measurement period (or defined outcome period) products. We discussed about innovators earlier in the thread.
I have to check out the Blackrock product which seems to have the best cap.

Odd that Schwab apparently allows purchase of ARDBX advisor shares without an advisor and low minimum

The minimum investment for ARDBX at several brokerages:
Fidelity - $2,500
Schwab - $2,500 (Basic), $1,000 (IRA)
Vanguard - $500

@catch22, thank you for the readable charts. VTV is still running ahead of VUG as of the last data drop at MFO premium to the end of June.
You ask "is this investment area really a solid 'trend' and/or rotation?" And I am reminded of a recent comment by Howard Marks highlighted in this thread (dinky linky.) "Investors should understand that the investment environment and the starting point for investments have a huge impact on their success."
People putting their money down at the end of 2021/beginning of 2022 might have different opinions about value versus growth than those of us playing around with various start times. The person that bought dumpy old FGRIX is probably tickled about his 12.5 return versus the 8.8 return of SPY, or the 7.5 return of VUG, his smarter friends bought. And there is no reason to assume that his smarter friends will ever catch up, though they will pound the table.
Of course FGRIX is only 35% value per M* although Lipper labels it LCV. There are plenty of other funds on the list that might better fit someone's definition of value. That old passive curiosity LEXCX returned 10.5.

@WABAC and BenWP I've added to two other performance charts for different time frames when Value could have provided some 'head fakes'.
--- Chart line colors likely vary by device type; but my laptop, for my very good eyes show red, a lime green and blue. Also, one may hover a pointer over the graph line at any point to 'see' the name of the fund/etf.
VUG vs VTV vs SPY (a reference choice) This chart is for 2 years and covers the full years of 2022 and 2023.
This chart is for the beginning of the COVID period and covers the full years of 2020 and 2021.
'Course, I'm showing these as time frames for various periods which can cause any of us who may want to make decisions in 'real time'. A tough road, for sure. Being, is this investment area really a solid 'trend' and/or rotation?
BIAS NOTE: We've been mostly U.S. centric investors for many years and fully since the melt of 2008. This includes equity and bonds. We obtain small pieces of international exposure via U.S. fund holdings. The 'other' bias is that we've been oriented to growth. 'Course there have a few scary periods for growth investors.

ahh...so the lawfare didn't work...Orange Man still standing (ya, I'll give you so far anyways)...and how come no one on this board is writing about how Biden does not have the stamina nor cognition for the role...and who is really running the country..the Bolshie Ron Klain, Jill Biden? and their diversity pick for VP is obviously not competent either so therefore all the angst, no?
Biden's presidency has been a total and complete flop...everything from intentionally opening the border to illegals consisting of who knows whom, a disaster re foreign policy, wars, emboldening Iran, not negotiating effectively prior to Putin marching into Ukraine, inflation up the wazoo which continues, using lawfare against his political opponents, out of control crime (don't BS me with false statistics, reporting of serious crime has been downgraded for the optics and many blue cities don't even report to the FBI stats anymore), freebies on the taxpayers dime, reducing school debt for many who make decent monies, what about the plumbers who didn't go to school to chase skirts and drink beer and screw off for 5 years?...and watching the debate...who in their right mind would think he is capable of holding office right now, let alone in the future?

Sure, take out the engine of the world, and things will look different.
Value has been lagging for about 15 years now.
But one day.... :-)

...but starting fwd P/E not so for stocks. Twitter LINK
This is a good illustration of the well-known bond Rule of Thumb that initial yields approximate the TR over the duration (AGG duration 6).
Shown https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRkhkOuXsAAkAPh?format=jpg&name=large
Not shown https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRkhoOlXkAEzkLm?format=jpg&name=small