Why three axes, not one
A single 'portfolio score' hides the trade-offs that actually define an investing strategy. A 6% yielder concentrated in two oil majors is high on Income, low on Resilience, low on Diversification. A 70-position MSCI World ETF is the opposite. Both can be 'good' portfolios for the right investor — but they're not the same portfolio dressed differently.
FolioInsights' Pillars panel scores three separately computed axes — Income, Resilience, Diversification — each on a 0-100 scale. The axes aren't statistically independent (high yield and falling growth, drawdown and beta, top-3 share and drawdown all tend to be correlated), but they capture distinct dimensions of behaviour. The point isn't to maximise the sum; it's to see your trade-offs at a glance and notice when one axis is silently doing damage.
Income — forward yield + 3-year dividend growth
Income combines two numbers. Forward yield (next 12 months' projected dividends ÷ current portfolio value) tells you the cash-on-cash income today. 3-year dividend growth tells you whether that income is rising, flat or falling.
High forward yield + falling 3-year growth is the warning combination — historically it precedes dividend cuts. High yield + healthy growth is what every income investor wants. Pairing both numbers in the Income axis prevents you from chasing a 7% yield that's about to become a 3% yield with a 50% price drop.
Resilience — drawdown + beta
Resilience is a FolioInsights composite score, not a textbook financial standard. It combines historical max drawdown over the selected period with beta vs the chosen benchmark — max drawdown shows how deep past falls were (path-dependent), beta shows how strongly the portfolio moved with the market on average (regression-based). A portfolio with a -18% max drawdown and β = 0.8 scores well on Resilience: it gave up some upside in exchange for moving less violently when the market dropped.
Resilience isn't the same as 'safe'. A low-beta portfolio can still drop 30% in a sectoral crash; a high-beta portfolio can recover faster from a market drawdown. The axis is a starting point for the conversation: how much pain is baked in, and is that what you signed up for?
Diversification — top-3 share
Diversification is driven by the top-3 share — the percentage of the portfolio held in the three largest positions. The scoring curve rewards under-30% (broadly diversified), tolerates 30–50% (focused but manageable), and penalises above 50% (idiosyncratic risk dominates).
We deliberately use top-3 rather than a Herfindahl index. Top-3 is intuitive — anyone can verify it in their head — and the analytics page's Concentration KPI uses the same metric, so the two views agree. It is a proxy, not a full diversification measure: 30 holdings all in semiconductors will score well on top-3 share while still carrying serious sector risk. The Exposure grid is where sector and country concentration show up.
Reading the chart
The Pillars chart shows three radial bars or a triangle (depending on viewport) with each axis labelled 0-100. A balanced long-term equity portfolio typically scores 40-70 on all three; concentrated growth scores high on nothing except occasional flashes of Income; deep-value income portfolios score high on Income, low on Diversification, mixed on Resilience.
There is no 'right' shape. What matters is whether the shape matches your stated goals. An investor who claims to be diversified and shows a 70% top-3 share has a planning problem; the Pillars panel is what surfaces it.
How it looks in FolioInsights
Diagnostic · 3 axes
Portfolio pillars
A read on what your holdings are doing well — and where the gaps are.
Strong
Mixed
Needs attention
Smart insights
Things worth knowing
Computed from your current positions. The list grows as more data lands.
Benchmark · alpha
You beat MSCI World by 1.8% annualised
Over the selected period your portfolio outpaced MSCI World on a monthly-return basis. Alpha is annualised; switch the period above to compare windows.
Concentration · top 3
Your top 3 holdings are 52% of the book
iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF, ASML Holding and Microsoft drive most of the moves. The guard rail kicks in at 50%.
Income · forecast
€958.00 in dividends expected next 12 months
June and December are the heaviest months. Shell contributes 20%.
Rendered from a synthetic demo portfolio — your own dashboard uses your DeGiro CSV.
Is one pillar more important than the others?
It depends on your goals. Someone living off dividends in retirement cares most about Income and Resilience. A 30-year-old compounding through monthly DCA cares about Diversification and the alpha picture, less so about Income. The Pillars chart is deliberately neutral on weighting so you can see all three and judge.
What does each pillar's score actually mean?
Each axis is mapped to a 0-100 score using thresholds calibrated against typical diversified-equity portfolios. 80+ is strong on that axis; 40-60 is average; under 30 is weak. The same thresholds drive your live Pillars chart, so the description here and the number you see always match.
How are the scores computed?
Income blends two numbers: forward yield (the cash income your portfolio is set to pay over the next 12 months, as a percentage) and 3-year dividend growth (whether that income is rising, flat, or falling). Resilience rewards portfolios that fell less in past crashes (smaller max drawdown) and that move less than the market on average (lower beta). Diversification scores your top-3 share: under 30% is rewarded, 30–50% is tolerated, above 50% is penalised. Every input is one of the numbers already shown elsewhere on the analytics page — nothing hidden.
Can a portfolio score high on all three?
Yes, but it's rare. A globally diversified dividend-growth ETF held alongside a few quality compounders can plausibly score 65+ on all three axes. Single-stock portfolios usually have to give up Diversification to gain Income; speculative growth gives up Income and Resilience to chase upside.
How does this differ from Morningstar's X-Ray?
Morningstar X-Ray decomposes a portfolio by style (value/growth, large/small) and sector exposure. Pillars is a different lens — it scores quality on three axes that an individual investor can actually act on. The two views complement rather than overlap.