Portfolio Analyzer

Transform your existing holdings into actionable insights. The Portfolio Analyzer applies institutional-grade quantitative methods to any portfolio, providing the same level of analysis used by billion-dollar endowments and hedge funds.

Most investment tools focus on picking new stocks. The Portfolio Analyzer starts with what you already own, then reveals hidden risks, optimization opportunities, and performance drivers using rigorous academic methodology.

Conceptual Foundation

The Portfolio-First Approach

Traditional investment analysis often examines securities in isolation. Modern Portfolio Theory, developed by Harry Markowitz in 1952, demonstrated that portfolio-level analysis is fundamental—the risk and return of individual holdings matter less than how they work together.

Key Principles:

• Diversification Benefits: How holdings correlate affects total portfolio risk
• Factor Exposure: Securities share common risk factors (value, growth, size, quality)
• Performance Attribution: Understanding what drives returns enables better decisions
• Optimization Opportunities: Mathematical methods can improve risk-adjusted returns

Getting Started

Uploading Your Portfolio

Supported Formats

• CSV Files: Standard comma-separated format
• Excel Files: .xlsx and .xls formats supported
• Manual Entry: For smaller portfolios or quick analysis
• Broker Integration: Direct connection to select platforms (where available)

Required Data Fields

Minimum Requirements:

• Symbol or ticker
• Quantity (shares or dollar amount)
• Asset type (if not auto-detected)

Enhanced Analysis (recommended):

• Purchase price or cost basis
• Purchase date
• Currency (for international holdings)
• Security name or description

Sample Portfolio Format

Date,Symbol,Weight
2023-01-15,AAPL,0.25
2023-02-20,MSFT,0.20
2023-03-10,GOOGL,0.15
2023-01-30,VTI,0.40

Portfolio Upload Process

1. Access the Analyzer: Navigate to the Analyzer tab in your dashboard
2. Choose Upload Method: File upload, manual entry, or broker connection
3. Map Data Fields: Confirm that columns are correctly identified
4. Review Holdings: Verify that securities are properly recognized
5. Initiate Analysis: Click "Analyze Portfolio" to begin processing

Processing Time: Most portfolios analyze in 30-60 seconds. Complex portfolios with many international holdings may take up to 2 minutes.

Understanding Your Analysis

Overview Tab: Portfolio Summary

Portfolio Metrics Dashboard

The Overview provides key statistics and high-level insights:

Total Portfolio Value: Current market value of all holdings Total Return: Performance since portfolio inception or specified period Sharpe Ratio: Risk-adjusted return measurement (see glossary) Volatility: Portfolio standard deviation (see glossary) Beta: Market sensitivity (see glossary) Maximum Drawdown: Largest peak-to-trough decline (see glossary)

Parallax Score: Our proprietary composite score (0-100) evaluating overall portfolio quality across multiple factors.

Asset Allocation Breakdown:

• Sector allocation with over/underweights vs. market
• Geographic distribution
• Market cap distribution
• Growth vs. value tilt

Performance Tab: Return Analysis

Time-Period Analysis

Returns Across Multiple Periods:

• 1 Day, 1 Week, 1 Month, 3 Month, 6 Month, 1 Year, 3 Year
• Comparison to relevant benchmarks (S&P 500, total market, custom)
• Risk-adjusted performance metrics for each period

Performance Attribution

Understanding What Drives Returns:

Security Selection: How individual stock picks contributed to performance relative to sector averages.

Sector Allocation: Impact of being overweight or underweight in specific sectors.

Factor Exposure: Contribution from value, growth, momentum, quality, and size factors.

Currency Impact: For international holdings, effect of currency movements.

Example Attribution Analysis:

Total Portfolio Return: +12.3% (vs. S&P 500: +8.7%)
  Security Selection: +2.1%
  Sector Allocation: +1.8%
  Factor Tilts: +1.2%
  Currency/Other: -1.5%

Benchmark Comparison

Rolling Returns Analysis: Shows how your portfolio performed vs. benchmarks over rolling time periods, revealing consistency of outperformance or underperformance.

Up/Down Market Capture: How well your portfolio participates in market gains vs. how much it protects in market declines.

Risk Tab: Comprehensive Risk Assessment

Traditional Risk Metrics

Volatility Analysis:

• Annualized standard deviation
• Downside deviation (volatility of negative returns)
• Tracking error vs. benchmark

See glossary for detailed definitions of volatility, standard deviation, and tracking error metrics.

Value at Risk (VaR): Statistical measure of potential losses over specific time horizons with given confidence levels.

• 1-day 95% VaR: "95% confident you won't lose more than X% in one day"
• 1-month 99% VaR: More extreme scenario analysis

Advanced Risk Decomposition

Factor Risk Attribution: Understanding portfolio risk sources through factor exposure:

Market Risk: Systematic risk from overall market movements Size Risk: Exposure to small vs. large-cap stocks Value Risk: Exposure to value vs. growth factors Momentum Risk: Exposure to recent price trends Quality Risk: Exposure to fundamental quality metrics Sector Risk: Concentration risk from sector bets

Correlation Analysis:

• Average correlation between holdings
• Highest correlated pairs (diversification gaps)
• Correlation to market during stress periods

Stress Testing

Historical Scenario Analysis: How would your portfolio have performed during major market events?

• 2008 Financial Crisis
• COVID-19 Market Crash (March 2020)
• Dot-com Bubble Burst (2000-2002)
• European Debt Crisis (2011)

Agentic Impact Analysis: Sophisticated scenario analysis powered by multi-agent AI workflow featuring 5-10 specialized agent layers that collaborate to evaluate portfolio impact across different market scenarios and stress conditions.

Monte Carlo Simulation: Statistical modeling of potential future outcomes based on historical patterns and correlations.

Holdings Tab: Individual Security Analysis

Security-Level Insights

Parallax Scores by Holding: Each position receives individual factor scores (0-10 scale):

• Value Score: Based on valuation metrics (P/E, P/B, EV/EBITDA, etc.)
• Quality Score: Financial strength, profitability, and stability
• Momentum Score: Price and earnings momentum indicators
• Defensive Score: Low volatility and stable earnings characteristics
• Size Score: Market cap factor exposure

Position Analysis:

• Portfolio weight vs. benchmark weight
• Contribution to total return
• Risk contribution to portfolio
• Liquidity assessment
• ESG scores (where applicable)

Sector and Geographic Breakdown: Visual representation of portfolio tilts with recommendations for rebalancing.

Factor Exposure Tab: Quantitative Analysis

Understanding Factor Loadings

What Are Factors? Factors are common characteristics that explain security returns. Academic research has identified several persistent factors that drive investment performance.

Your Portfolio's Factor Exposure:

Market Beta: Sensitivity to overall market movements (see glossary for detailed explanation)

Size Factor: Exposure to small vs. large companies

• Positive loading: Tilted toward smaller companies
• Negative loading: Tilted toward larger companies

Value Factor: Preference for cheap vs. expensive stocks

• Positive loading: Value-oriented portfolio
• Negative loading: Growth-oriented portfolio

Momentum Factor: Exposure to recent winners vs. losers

• Positive loading: Momentum strategy
• Negative loading: Contrarian strategy

Quality Factor: High-quality vs. low-quality companies

• Positive loading: Quality-focused
• Negative loading: Speculative holdings

Factor Performance Attribution

Understanding how factor bets contributed to performance:

3-Month Performance Attribution:
  Market Beta (1.15): +1.8%
  Value Factor (-0.3): -0.7%
  Size Factor (0.1): +0.2%
  Momentum Factor (0.8): +2.1%
  Quality Factor (0.5): +1.2%

Interpretation: Your portfolio benefited from positive momentum and quality exposure but was hurt by slight growth tilt during a value rally.

Optimization Tab: Improvement Recommendations

AI-Powered Insights

Portfolio Health Check:

• Concentration risk assessment
• Correlation cluster identification
• Factor balance evaluation
• Cost efficiency analysis

Specific Recommendations:

Reduce Concentration: "Your top 5 holdings represent 68% of portfolio value. Consider reducing positions in AAPL and MSFT."

Improve Diversification: "Adding international exposure through VEA or emerging markets via VWO could reduce correlation risk."

Factor Balance: "Your portfolio has strong momentum exposure but lacks defensive characteristics. Consider adding utilities or consumer staples."

Tax Efficiency: "Selling XYZ at a loss could offset gains in ABC while maintaining similar factor exposure through DEF."

Mathematical Optimization

Mean-Variance Optimization: Suggests portfolio weights that maximize expected return for given risk level or minimize risk for target return.

Risk Parity Approach: Rebalances so each position contributes equally to portfolio risk rather than equal dollar amounts.

Black-Litterman Enhancement: Incorporates your views and confidence levels to adjust optimization suggestions.

Implementation Guidelines:

• Suggested trade sizes with transaction cost consideration
• Tax-loss harvesting opportunities
• Rebalancing schedule recommendations
• Options for gradual vs. immediate implementation

Advanced Analysis Features

Custom Benchmarks

Create personalized benchmarks reflecting your actual investment universe:

• Combine multiple indices with custom weights
• Include alternative investments
• Adjust for currency exposure
• Account for expense ratios and fees

Historical Backtesting

"What If" Analysis:

• How would proposed changes have performed historically?
• Sensitivity analysis for different market conditions
• Transaction cost impact modeling
• Tax implications of rebalancing

ESG Integration

Environmental, Social, Governance Analysis:

• ESG scores for individual holdings
• Portfolio-level ESG metrics
• Comparison to ESG benchmarks
• Impact of ESG considerations on returns and risk

Interpreting Results and Taking Action

Making Sense of Complex Data

Start with the Overview: Get the big picture before diving into details Focus on Outliers: Identify the biggest risks and opportunities first Understand Trade-offs: Every portfolio decision involves risk/return trade-offs Consider Implementation: Theory is worthless without practical execution

Common Insights and Actions

High Concentration:

• Finding: Top 3 holdings are 45% of portfolio
• Action: Gradually reduce positions, diversify across more holdings

Factor Imbalance:

• Finding: Strong momentum exposure, no defensive characteristics
• Action: Add defensive sectors or low-volatility ETFs

Underperforming Holdings:

• Finding: Several positions with low Parallax scores
• Action: Research upgrade alternatives with better factor characteristics

Geographic Concentration:

• Finding: 95% US exposure despite global opportunities
• Action: Add international developed and emerging market exposure

Integration with Other Platform Features

From Analyzer to Screener: "I need more defensive stocks" → Use screener to find low-volatility, high-quality opportunities

From Analyzer to Builder: "Create an optimized version of my portfolio" → Use AI Builder with specific constraints and objectives

From Analyzer to Chat: "Why is my portfolio underperforming?" → Get detailed explanation and improvement suggestions

Best Practices

Regular Analysis Schedule

Monthly Reviews: Track performance and rebalancing needs Quarterly Deep Dives: Comprehensive analysis including factor exposures Annual Strategic Review: Assess alignment with long-term objectives

Documentation and Tracking

Maintain Analysis History: Track how recommendations perform over time Record Rationale: Document why you made specific changes Monitor Implementation: Ensure trades align with optimization suggestions

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Over-Optimization: Don't chase perfection—focus on material improvements Ignoring Costs: Factor transaction costs and taxes into decisions Recency Bias: Consider long-term patterns, not just recent performance Analysis Paralysis: Take action on clear insights rather than endless analysis

Troubleshooting

Data Issues

Unrecognized Securities: Manual entry options for less common holdings Currency Mismatches: Specify base currency and conversion preferences Missing Cost Basis: Analysis works without cost data but with reduced functionality

Analysis Questions

Benchmark Selection: Choose benchmarks that reflect your actual investment universe Time Period Selection: Use periods relevant to your investment horizon Factor Interpretation: Focus on largest factor exposures first

AI Chat Assistant for Portfolio Analysis

After analyzing your portfolio, use the AI Chat Assistant to dig deeper into findings, get personalized advice, and explore optimization strategies through natural conversation.

How to Use AI Chat with Your Portfolio

Navigate to the Chat tab in your dashboard. The AI is portfolio-aware and can reference your analysis results to provide contextual recommendations.

Portfolio-Focused Queries:

"Why is my Parallax score only 6.5? What should I fix first?"
"Explain my factor exposure—why is my Value score so low?"
"My quality factor is 2.8. Which holdings are dragging it down?"
"How should I rebalance to reduce my tech concentration?"

Risk and Optimization Questions:

"What's my biggest risk right now based on this analysis?"
"Which holdings should I replace to improve diversification?"
"How can I increase my defensive factor without losing too much return?"
"Analyze my portfolio's stress test results—what do they mean?"

Strategy Development:

"I want to reduce volatility to 15%. What changes do you suggest?"
"Create a plan to fix my sector concentration issues"
"How do I transition this portfolio to be more ESG-friendly?"

Best Practices for AI-Assisted Analysis

Be Specific: Reference specific metrics from your analysis ("My Sharpe ratio is 0.8, market is 1.1")

Ask Follow-ups: Build on responses ("What if I can't sell position X for tax reasons?")

Use Your Data: "Based on my uploaded portfolio..." gets personalized responses

Integrate Actions: Ask AI to generate Stock Screener criteria or Portfolio Builder instructions based on recommendations

Next Steps

After completing your portfolio analysis:

• Stock Screener Guide: Find replacement securities for underperformers
• AI Portfolio Builder: Create optimized versions of your portfolio
• Investment Methodology: Learn complete optimization workflows and systematic approaches

The Portfolio Analyzer becomes more powerful as you develop fluency with its insights and integrate analysis into your regular investment process. Start with the Overview tab and gradually explore more advanced features as you build confidence with the platform.