The plain-English glossary.

Market value (of a holding)

What a holding is worth right now: the number of shares you own multiplied by the current market price.

Why it matters. PortLens values every holding at the live price, not at what you paid for it. This is what drives your weights and most of your risk gauges.

Example. 100 shares at a live price of $35 = $3,500 market value.

Portfolio weight

How much of your total portfolio a single holding represents, measured by value, not by the number of shares.

Why it matters. A holding's weight decides how much it moves your whole portfolio. Two holdings with the same share count can carry very different weights if their prices differ.

Example. A $3,500 holding inside a $5,000 portfolio has a weight of 70 percent.

Equal weight vs equal share count

Holding the same number of shares in each stock is not the same as holding an equal amount of money in each.

Why it matters. Because weight is based on value, buying 100 shares of a $35 stock and 100 shares of a 10 cent stock leaves you almost entirely exposed to the expensive one. To get equal weights, invest equal dollar amounts instead of equal share counts.

Example. 100 shares each: a $35 stock is worth $3,500 and a $0.10 stock is worth $10. The first is more than 99 percent of the money.

Average cost

The average price you actually paid for a holding.

Why it matters. Average cost is used to work out your profit or loss. It is not used to weight your portfolio or measure risk. That job belongs to the live market price.

Unrealised profit or loss

The gain or loss on a holding you still own, on paper, valued at today's price.

Why it matters. It becomes realised only when you sell. Until then it moves up and down with the market price.

Concentration risk

How much of your portfolio sits in just a few holdings. PortLens measures it as the share of value in your top three positions.

Why it matters. The more concentrated you are, the more your outcome depends on a small number of names. It is one of the most common hidden risks in a portfolio.

Example. If your three biggest holdings are 99 percent of the value, your other holdings barely move the result.

Interest rate risk

How sensitive your holdings are to changes in interest rates.

Why it matters. Rate moves affect different assets in different directions. Long dated bonds and property tend to be very sensitive, while banks behave differently again. PortLens shows a value-weighted read across your holdings.

Currency (FX) risk

The effect of moves in the Australian dollar on the value of your unhedged offshore holdings.

Why it matters. When you own an overseas asset in a foreign currency, your return depends partly on the currency as well as the asset. Currency-hedged funds are built to remove most of this effect.

Offshore (global) exposure

The share of your portfolio, by value, invested outside Australia.

Why it matters. It tells you how far you are diversified away from the local market, and which currencies you are exposed to.

Factor exposure

How much your portfolio leans on a particular driver, such as Australian banks, iron ore or Chinese demand.

Why it matters. Two very different looking portfolios can carry the same underlying bets. Factor exposure makes those shared bets visible.

Diversification

Spreading your money across holdings that do not all move together.

Why it matters. Genuine diversification is about different risks, not just a longer list of names. Ten holdings that all depend on the same driver are not well diversified.

ETF (exchange traded fund)

A fund that trades on an exchange like a share and usually tracks an index, sector or theme.

Why it matters. One ETF can hold hundreds of underlying companies, so its risk depends on what sits inside it, not just its ticker.

Look-through exposure

Seeing the underlying holdings and drivers inside a fund, rather than treating the fund as a single black box.

Why it matters. A broad Australian fund is mostly banks and miners underneath. Look-through lets PortLens measure the real risks a fund adds to your portfolio.

Geared (leveraged) ETF

A fund that borrows internally to amplify its exposure, so it moves more than the index both up and down.

Why it matters. Gearing increases volatility. These funds can also drift from a simple multiple of the index over time because of daily resets, so they behave differently over longer periods.

Inverse (bear) ETF

A fund built to rise when a market falls and fall when it rises. Some are magnified, so they move more than the market.

Why it matters. These are short-term hedging or trading tools rather than buy and hold investments. The daily reset means returns can drift away from the market's mirror image over time.

Currency-hedged fund

A fund that uses hedging to remove most of the effect of currency moves on your return.

Why it matters. It lets you own an overseas asset while largely stripping out the Australian dollar's ups and downs. The trade-off is that you no longer benefit if the currency moves your way.

Delta-adjusted exposure

The real, share-equivalent exposure an option gives you, based on how much its price moves for a move in the underlying (its delta).

Why it matters. One option contract is not the same as owning the shares outright. Delta-adjusting translates options into an equivalent number of shares so they can be folded into your portfolio risk honestly.

The Greeks

A set of measures (delta, gamma, theta, vega and others) describing how an option's value responds to price, time and volatility.

Why it matters. They explain why an option gains or loses value, which is rarely a straight line with the underlying share.