Personal Allocation
A case study in how I think about allocation, liquidity and liabilities. Personal balances stay private; the example below uses a hypothetical €100,000 starting value and percentage weights.
If €100,000 had been invested using this static allocation at the start of the period, the market proxies below would imply an approximate EUR-based price return of 35.5%. The calculation includes currency translation from USD back into EUR; it is an illustration of the type of risk exposure I favour, not my actual portfolio performance.
US technology · 50%QQQ · ~+47.9% in EUR
Europe · 20%VGK · ~+17.8% in EUR
Emerging Markets · 20%VWO · ~+29.6% in EUR
Gold · 8%GLD · ~+25.8% in EUR
Cash · 2%0% modelled
EUR/USD1.1600 → 1.1177
US technology50%
Europe20%
Emerging Markets20%
Gold8%
Cash2%
Single-stock look-through
The largest individual companies inside each equity bucket, showing both their weight in the ETF and their approximate effective weight in the total model portfolio. Smaller holdings are grouped into “Other”.
Nasdaq-100 exposure. The top 10 positions account for about 46.7% of QQQ, making this the most concentrated equity sleeve.
NVIDIA8.33% of QQQ · 4.17% of model
Apple7.35% · 3.68%
Microsoft5.76% · 2.88%
Micron5.02% · 2.51%
AMD4.17% · 2.09%
Amazon4.07% · 2.04%
Meta3.26% · 1.63%
Alphabet A3.05% · 1.53%
Alphabet C2.85% · 1.43%
Tesla2.82% · 1.41%
Other QQQ holdings53.32% · 26.66% of model
Broad developed-Europe exposure. VGK holds more than 1,200 stocks, so individual-company concentration is much lower than in QQQ.
ASML4.79% of VGK · 0.96% of model
HSBC2.04% · 0.41%
Novartis1.83% · 0.37%
Roche1.81% · 0.36%
AstraZeneca1.76% · 0.35%
Nestlé1.66% · 0.33%
Siemens1.48% · 0.30%
Santander1.26% · 0.25%
Shell1.25% · 0.25%
Allianz1.13% · 0.23%
Other European holdings80.99% · 16.20% of model
Very broad emerging-market exposure with more than 6,000 stocks, although TSMC is a meaningfully larger position than any other single holding.
TSMC14.90% of VWO · 2.98% of model
Tencent3.18% · 0.64%
Alibaba2.32% · 0.46%
MediaTek1.30% · 0.26%
China Construction Bank0.86% · 0.17%
Delta Electronics0.79% · 0.16%
Hon Hai Precision0.77% · 0.15%
Reliance Industries0.76% · 0.15%
HDFC Bank0.74% · 0.15%
ICICI Bank0.66% · 0.13%
Other EM holdings73.72% · 14.74% of model
The framework is deliberately growth-oriented: half of the model sits in US technology, while Europe and Emerging Markets provide geographic diversification. Gold acts as a separate real-asset exposure and cash is kept minimal.
I also carry student debt. I therefore distinguish between financial assets and net worth: liabilities belong in the personal balance sheet even when they are not part of the investment allocation itself.
Illustrative personal-finance case study only. The €100,000 starting value is hypothetical. Market-proxy returns use price changes between 23 June 2025 and 7 October 2026 and include translation from USD into EUR using the EUR/USD rate at the two endpoints; dividends, taxes and fees are excluded. My tracked financial assets grew by roughly 42% over the broader period, but that also includes new savings and contributions and should not be read as investment performance. This is not investment, financial, tax or legal advice.