Methodology

Transparency at every calculation step

Traceable, deterministic and honest. This is how Investboard works.

Investboard discloses how calculations are performed, where data comes from and which assumptions are made. Every figure is traceable: no black boxes, no hidden models.

Portfolio analysis

Portfolio analysis follows a structured process that runs automatically and deterministically.

Data import & aggregation

CSV import: transaction data from common banks and brokers is read in and normalised
Position aggregation: individual transactions are consolidated into positions (FIFO principle)
Automatic detection: currency, asset class, and ISIN are assigned automatically on import
Repeated imports: an identical file upload is recognised within 24 hours and not booked again

Allocation calculation

The actual allocation is based on the current market value of all positions
Categorisation by asset class, region, sector, and currency
Weighting relative to the total portfolio value
Overlaps between ETFs are taken into account (look-through)

Performance tracking

Time-weighted return (TWR) to compare investment quality independently of inflows and outflows
Money-weighted return (MWR) for the actual investor experience, accounting for timing effects
Benchmark comparison against four references: MSCI World, DAX, S&P 500 or a cash rate
Dividends, distributions, and costs are taken into account

Return measurement

Return is calculated from daily closing values and your own transactions. Two figures answer two different questions.

Time-weighted return (TWR)

The history is cut at every cash flow. Each sub-period gets a Modified-Dietz return, and those returns are geometrically linked
Deposits and withdrawals are neutralised at the sub-period boundaries: a contribution can never read as performance
Dividends count as internal income of the holdings and flow into the period return

Money-weighted return (MWR)

An internal rate of return over your actual cash flows: buys as outflows, sales, dividends and the closing value as inflows
It answers what your own timing earned, not the quality of the investment itself
Below one year of history no figure is reported

When no figure appears

Below one year of history nothing is annualised. An en-dash appears rather than an extrapolated number
A single sub-period the arithmetic cannot define withholds the entire figure, not only the affected slice
Volatility and the Sharpe ratio drop out as soon as a pricing gap exceeds seven days; the Sharpe ratio additionally below 30 observations
Where a value is missing on a needed day the last known level is carried forward. The largest such gap is tracked and reported as a data-quality state past seven days

Comparison figures

Four fixed references: MSCI World, DAX, S&P 500 or a cash rate
The comparison runs against tradeable ETF proxies, not against the index itself
The difference against the S&P 500 stays unreported because it is quoted in US dollars while your portfolio reports in euro
The difference against the DAX stays unreported while only a price-based series is available: it would not be comparable with a dividend-inclusive portfolio return
The cash-rate comparison is an even curve at today's rate, not a historical interest-rate path. The label says so

Every return rests on one closing value per day and is never intraday. Value history begins when a portfolio starts being tracked: imported transactions do not create value history retroactively.

Concentration & look-through

For concentration, Investboard dissolves funds into their individual positions, merges them with your direct holdings and groups the result by issuer.

Look-through

Funds are dissolved into their constituents and merged with direct holdings into a single book
Two share classes of the same company count as one position
The undissolved remainder of a fund stays in the denominator as real portfolio value but is never ranked as an issuer
The share that could not be dissolved is reported separately according to whether the data was missing or the fund is opaque by its nature

The refusal floor

If less than 80 percent of the portfolio value has actually been dissolved, Investboard names no largest issuer
The reason appears instead of a number. A breach is never computed from a minority of the book
Not measurable stays not measurable and never becomes a zero
Directly held shares and bonds count as transparent by definition, so the floor only bites when funds fail to dissolve

Limits of the grouping

There is no corporate-group resolution through legal entity identifiers or parent and subsidiary relationships
Outside the United States, grouping runs only through a deliberately narrow name normalisation. In case of doubt two lines stay separate
The direction is chosen on purpose: keeping lines separate understates concentration, while merging two different companies would be the graver error
Bond funds are not looked through to their bond issuers. They remain as an openly named remainder

What you set and what is fixed

You set the limit for your largest single issuer in your mandate
The 5/40 rule modelled on the German fund standard and the look-through floor are fixed constants
The effective number of issuers is context, not a rule. Its denominator is the whole valued book, so a lot of cash or undissolved fund mass makes it look higher

Fund constituent data comes from provider disclosures and is cached. What is shown is the provider's own as-of date, not the time of retrieval.

Net worth & currencies

The net-worth view sums six categories and converts everything into euro as the single reporting currency.

What is counted

Securities, real estate, pensions, precious metals and other assets make up gross assets
Net worth is gross assets less liabilities
The same figures are additionally split into liquid and tied-up wealth
Securities are not read from a stored value but revalued at the moment of retrieval

Currency conversion

Conversion runs through two legs: from the position's currency into the portfolio's base currency, and from there into euro
Portfolios with different base currencies are therefore never added as if they were the same unit
Exchange rates come from the European Central Bank's reference rates first, with market-data providers only as a fallback. The source is stored alongside every rate
Reference rates are one daily fixing, not the rate at which anyone actually traded
If a rate is missing or older than 24 hours the calculation refuses: the position is skipped rather than converted at one to one

What is not included

Bank balances and crypto assets do not count towards net worth
Only securities are multi-currency. Real estate, pensions, precious metals, other assets and liabilities carry no currency field: the amount you enter is treated as euro
There is no automatic property valuation. The value is the one you enter

Once a day one level per user is written, freshly recomputed and never from a cache. The run is skipped when the price refresh has not succeeded within the last 24 hours.

Projections

Projections show ranges. They are a calculation under disclosed assumptions, not a prediction.

How the simulation works

1,000 paths over monthly steps, drawn from one fixed starting value: identical inputs produce exactly the same result
The middle path grows at precisely the rate you stated. The annual rate is converted to months geometrically, not divided by twelve
Volatility is not an input but one of three fixed tiers. It is deliberately set above historically measured levels
The bands are rank-order values across the simulated paths, not a confidence interval

What is deducted

At each year boundary the Vorabpauschale is deducted per fund sleeve at that sleeve's own partial exemption
The annually renewing saver's allowance is credited against it
Where a Nichtveranlagungsbescheinigung is on file the deduction does not apply

What the model cannot do

It models neither volatility clustering nor heavy distribution tails or crisis dynamics. Over long horizons the lower band can understate risk
Costs and fees are not included. The underlying return assumptions are gross of costs
Tax on a later realised gain is not included. Only the running Vorabpauschale is deducted
The assumptions are a maintained table of long-run historical averages with a recorded review date, not a continuously updated market figure

When no projection appears

If a target amount, a return assumption or a risk profile is missing, the goal is skipped. No projection is invented
An explicit note that no projection exists yet appears instead of a figure, rather than a green or red status
Where no return assumption is stored for an asset class, an en-dash and a prompt to set one appear rather than a zero

A joint projection for two people assumes both portfolios move in lockstep. No diversification benefit between them is credited.

Tax calculation

The tax calculation models the German tax waterfall for capital income in detail:

Gross capital income

Dividends, realised capital gains, advance lump sums (Vorabpauschale)

Partial exemption (Teilfreistellung)

Depending on fund type: 30% (equity funds), 15% (mixed funds), 60% (real-estate funds), 80% (foreign real-estate funds)

Loss offsetting (Verlustverrechnung)

Equity losses offset only equity gains, other losses offset all remaining capital income

Saver's allowance (Sparerpauschbetrag)

EUR 1,000 (individual) or EUR 2,000 (joint filing) is deducted

Flat capital-gains tax (Abgeltungsteuer)

25% on the remaining taxable amount

Solidarity surcharge (Solidaritätszuschlag)

5.5% on the Abgeltungsteuer

Church tax (optional)

8% or 9% on the Abgeltungsteuer, depending on the federal state

Tax rates are based on applicable German tax law (EStG §20, InvStG). Investboard does not provide tax advice. The calculation is for illustration and does not replace individual tax review.

Data sources

Investboard sources market data from specialist market-data providers:

Price data

Twelve Data: current and historical prices (timeliness varies by venue)
Update frequency: intraday
Coverage: stocks, ETFs, funds, bonds
Fallback on data outages: last known price, clearly flagged

Closing prices & fundamental data

Financial Modeling Prep: closing prices (end-of-day), company metrics, ETF holdings
Update frequency: closing prices and metrics daily, ETF holdings weekly
Quality control: automatic plausibility checks
Caching: metrics are cached and re-fetched once they expire

Data quality is monitored continuously. The user is informed of discrepancies or missing data points.

Rebalancing & optimisation

Rebalancing recommendations are calculated algorithmically based on the target allocation:

Drift detection

Drift measures how far the current allocation deviates from the target allocation. Investboard calculates the absolute drift per asset class.

Absolute drift: the difference in percentage points between actual and target
Selectable trigger: cash flows, threshold, calendar or manual
The drift band itself is set uniformly by Investboard

Optimisation algorithm

Calculation of the required buy/sell amounts per position
Minimising the number of transactions for a given budget
Tax effects are accounted for: realising gains is made transparent
Cash-flow-optimised: favouring additional purchases over sales where possible

What rebalancing is not

Investboard calculates recommendations but does not execute any transactions. The decision always rests with the user. Rebalancing suggestions are not investment advice, but a mathematical tool for adhering to your own defined strategy.

Use of AI

Investboard uses artificial intelligence deliberately and transparently. Its use follows clear principles:

What AI is used for

Explanation: presenting metrics and portfolio performance clearly
Pattern detection: identifying anomalies in allocation or costs
Summary: portfolio overview and quarterly letter
Conversation: answering questions about your own portfolio

What AI is not used for

No predictions: no price or return forecasts
No decisions: AI makes no investment decisions
No guarantees: statements are phrased as context, not certainty
No autonomous action: no automated transactions

Model & security

Language model: Claude (Anthropic), with no access to external systems or the internet
Context: the AI receives only the user's own financial data (portfolio, net-worth overview and tax profile), never another user's data
Phrasing: answers deliberately use formulations such as 'Based on the available data...' or 'One possible interpretation is...'
Human in the loop: every AI-generated recommendation requires an active user decision
No training data: user data is not used to train AI models

When Investboard declines to answer

The hardest number is the one you do not have. Investboard is built to show nothing in that case rather than something plausible.

No value is invented as a substitute

Loading and empty are separate states. While a query is in flight a fixed-width placeholder stands there, not a zero
A withheld value appears as an en-dash, never as a zero. The formatter deliberately returns nothing, so the placeholder has to be placed consciously
Negative amounts carry a typographic minus sign, not a hyphen

Checked at build time

Checks in the build process fail the build if invented euro or percentage figures, invented user counts or made-up price series return to the code
Equally rejected are fallbacks that turn a lack of knowledge into a number, and timestamps that pass the server clock off as the age of the data
Count-up animation on monetary values is prohibited. Numbers appear fully formed rather than counting up
Promotional promises and exclamation marks are blocked in the copy dictionaries
A meta-check prevents any of these checks from quietly becoming ineffective

Refusals in live operation

Below 80 percent look-through the concentration measure names no largest issuer
If an exchange rate is missing or ages past 24 hours the position drops out of the total rather than being counted one to one
A position without a usable price is not valued at zero but listed by name as unvalued
Below one year of history no return is extrapolated, and below 30 observations no Sharpe ratio is reported
A concentration alert is withheld while prices in the core book are older than 72 hours

Where this commitment ends

The check for whether the AI states a figure absent from its data records the case but does not withhold the answer
Where an AI answer reads like a recommendation, a note is placed beneath it rather than the sentence being removed
This protective layer works on patterns and is explicitly not watertight
On the home page example figures are permitted and marked as such in the code. They are illustration, not measurement

These rules are not a promise to always be right. They are the commitment to show the gap rather than fill it.

Limits & transparency

Investboard communicates clearly what the platform does and does not do. Honesty about its own limits is part of the product promise.

No investment advice

Investboard is an analysis tool. The platform does not provide individual investment advice within the meaning of the WpHG (the German Securities Trading Act). All information is for illustration only.

No trade execution

Investboard does not carry out securities transactions and does not route orders to banks or brokers. Bank and custody connections are used solely to read your holdings. Strategy and analysis, not execution.

No future forecasts

The platform analyses historical and current data but makes no forecasts about future price movements or returns.

No return guarantees

Simulations and projections show ranges, not promises. Investboard names the assumptions a calculation rests on and marks what is measured against what is modelled.

The standard

Strategy, not trading. Clarity, not noise.

See the methodology

Transparent calculations, traceable methods. See it in the product.

Get started free View the sample case file