Portfolio Workbench

Build while you learn

Next checkpoint

Goal and limits set

0 / 7

Stored in this browser. Personal and practice work remain separate. “Complete” never means advice or permission to trade.

Source Basis

Investment Foundations

Mission 12 · Lesson 12.1 — Choose the Actual Holdings

Aswath Damodaran, Investment Philosophies (Session 37 of 38); SEC EDGAR filings; SEC Form N-1A

How this lesson uses themShow

Damodaran Session 37 supplies the passive-product taxonomy only — classic index funds, enhanced index funds and exchange-traded funds — and is treated as a source-era framework rather than a current product guide: its data ends in 2010, its examples are SPDRs and the Wilshire 5000, and its claim that ETFs cost slightly more than index funds is falsified by the current filings this mission uses, so it is not repeated. Session 37 quiz item 1 is numbered a–d in the test and a–e in the solution; the answer text is unambiguous and OPS cites the text, not the letter. Session 37's own quiz supplies the standard applied to tracking: a good index fund is one that tracks its index, not one that beats it. Every product figure comes from that product's own current SEC filing, retrieved 2026-08-16 and named on the page — Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares (VTI) and Vanguard 500 Index Fund ETF Shares (VOO) from 497K accessions 0000036405-26-000197 and 0000036405-26-000183; iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) and iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) from 497K accessions 0001193125-26-287958 and 0001193125-26-287938; holdings from N-PORT accessions 0000036405-26-000323, 0000036405-26-000325, 0001410368-26-075254 and 0002071691-26-016719. The share-class table is read from the SGML header of 485BPOS accession 0000036405-26-000181. The portfolio-turnover exclusion is Form N-1A Item 3 instruction (d)(ii). Quarterly N-PORT data is not live holdings: every as-of date and its age at retrieval is shown, and because the two sponsors file on different fiscal calendars, no cross-sponsor overlap figure comes from a single snapshot. Reported position weights sum to 100.25%, 100.14%, 101.88% and 108.82% and are never normalised. Overlap is keyed on legal-entity identifier with a CUSIP fallback, and the share of each fund that could not be keyed is disclosed; one CUSIP in the slate is filed under three names and two LEIs, so the limits of both keys are shown rather than hidden. No filing in this slate publishes a bid-ask spread or premium/discount figure, so those fields stay qualitative. The four products are worked examples of a category, chosen for verification and overlap teaching value and deliberately spread across two sponsors. Nothing here ranks, scores or recommends a fund; no order is ever transmitted; no brokerage is contacted; no credential is requested; and no personal tax liability is calculated. Full audit: docs/source-audits/mission-12-holdings.md.

Mission 12Investment Foundations · Choose the actual holdings

Choose the Actual Holdings

Every mission so far ended in a policy. This one ends in a product — and a product has a legal identity, a filing, and an exposure you may already own through something else. You will read the filings rather than the fact sheets.

Your mission

Find out what a ticker legally is, fill in a fund’s identity from its own prospectus one fact at a time, X-ray the exposure you are holding twice, then rehearse an order that names the exact share class — and is never sent anywhere.

Open the filing ↓

40 minutesEight guided stagesOne saved holdings listNo order is ever transmitted

Guided holdings lab

0 of 8 stages complete

OPS Guide

You think you are buying VTI. Ask the SEC what VTI is and it has never heard of it — because no such filer exists. What exists is a trust, a fund inside it, and a share class you can buy.

Look the ticker up, then read what actually came back.

Stage 1 of 8 · Identity

A ticker is not a product

EDGAR company search