The Emerging Investor

Sarah Nguyen

28 · Marketing & UX designer · Sydney · investing 2 years

Fictional demonstration investor — example data, read-only.

Sarah started investing two years ago after months of reading, watching and listening — YouTube, podcasts, the finance side of Instagram. She bought a broad Australian fund, some US exposure, a tech fund everyone was talking about, a bank share and a couple of others. Six holdings felt like a sensible spread.

What Sarah Nguyen thought

“I bought six different investments, so I figured I'd spread my money around.”

What Sarah Nguyen owns

6 holdings

Portfolio value $19,484

Holding	Weight	Value
VASVanguard Australian Shares ETF	26.5%	$5,157
IVViShares S&P 500 ETF	22.8%	$4,442
VGSVanguard MSCI Index International Shares ETF	18.3%	$3,568
CBACommonwealth Bank	15.4%	$2,993
NDQBetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF	9.3%	$1,807
ETHIBetashares Global Sustainability Leaders ETF	7.8%	$1,516

What Sarah is really exposed to

36% of your portfolio moves with Currency (FX).

You hold 6 investments, but you're really making about 2 big bets.

Your top 3 holdings are 68% of the portfolio.

The economic bets underneath

Currency (FX)37%moderate

via IVV, VGS, NDQ

Interest rates36%moderate

via CBA, IVV, VGS

US & global equities36%moderate

via IVV, VGS, NDQ

Australian banks23%moderate

via CBA, VAS

Iron ore7%low

via VAS

58.2% of the portfolio is offshore — mostly USD.

Sarah did a lot of things right. Each individual decision was reasonable on its own.

But PortLens shows that several of her funds hold many of the same underlying companies — the large US technology names turn up again and again across them. A big share of her portfolio ultimately rides on the same handful of US giants, and on the US dollar.

Six investments, but far fewer distinct exposures than it looks. Once she can see it, she can decide what — if anything — to do about it.

Explore the full app as Sarah Nguyen.

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Snapshot card

Their real exposure, at a glance.

Weekly card

This week's ASX × their biggest exposure.

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