One of the most copied growth portfolios on the Trading212 platform has left experts “doffing their cap” to the creator. But there are big risks that come with such a strategy, they warned.
Trading212’s popular ‘pie’ feature lets users build portfolios from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and make them public for others to copy.
A previous Trustnet analysis put one of the platform's most-followed income pies under professional scrutiny. This time, we turned to a growth-oriented equivalent, which 7,300 users have copied at the time of writing.
One issue is that customers may not know who is behind the portfolio they are copying, trusting a stranger with their money. This is the case here. There is no contact information for the creator of the pie, with copiers replicating with limited information.
The creator’s biography reads: “My investment journey began in 1982. I've been through a few crashes, which I find change your attitude to risk”.
The portfolio description reads simply: “A growth-oriented ETF portfolio. Returned 36% in 2025.” It holds 10 positions, as illustrated in the table below.
| Fund | Allocation |
| iShares Core FTSE 100 | 15% |
| Franklin FTSE Korea | 15% |
| iShares Core MSCI World | 10% |
| Royal Mint Responsibly Sourced Physical Gold | 10% |
| VanEck Gold Miners | 10% |
| VanEck Defense | 10% |
| Vaneck Space Innovators | 10% |
| Invesco STOXX Europe 600 Optimised Banks | 10% |
| Invesco S&P 500 | 5% |
| Invesco EQQQ Nasdaq-100 | 5% |
For those copying it – or those thinking of adding more growth to their own portfolios – three fund selectors assess what is working and what is not in this pie.
What the professionals like
The portfolio is "difficult to fault”, according to Benjamin Newton, investment manager at Credo, with several of the themes overlapping with positions in Credo's own funds.
Korea, he said, has been “a masterstroke” – the market surged from deeply discounted levels, driven by the semiconductor supercycle and corporate governance reform that has eroded the long-standing Korea discount.
The gold structure was also “well-thought-out”, as holding both physical gold and miners captures the safe-haven thesis and, through the miners, operational leverage to the gold price.
The macro backdrop for this allocation remains compelling, said Newton, with fiscal expansion, geopolitical fragmentation and central banks quietly reducing dollar-denominated reserves all point in the same direction.
Defence “needs little justification”, given the fracturing of the US-NATO relationship and structural rearmament across Europe.
Darius McDermott, managing director at FundCalibre, agreed on the thematic calls.
"You have to doff your hat to the investor who built this. Korea, space and gold have been winning themes over the past year, and the performance speaks for itself."
However, for the current portfolio to work, several things need to go right at the same time, according to Sheridan Admans, founder and chief investment strategist at Infundly.
Gold needs to remain well supported, miners need to translate that into earnings, Korea and banks need a cyclical recovery, and defence/space themes need continued investor appetite.
The fail scenario is a higher-rate, risk-off environment where bond yields rise, equity valuations de-rate, gold does not protect and the thematic exposures fall together.
“This is relevant,” Admans said, “because markets are still dealing with rate volatility, geopolitical risk and questions over whether traditional diversifiers are working as reliably as expected”.
The problem points
On paper, 10 ETFs across regions, commodities and themes look diversified. In practice, things look a bit different for Admans.
"The biggest risk in the current portfolio is concentration masquerading as diversification," he said.
Only around 10% sits in broad global developed equity through iShares Core MSCI World. The rest is a set of specific regional and thematic bets: UK large-caps, Korea, gold, gold miners, defence, space, European banks and US tech. There is also an overlap between the MSCI World, S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 positions, which together account for 20% of the portfolio.
McDermott added that the Franklin FTSE Korea ETF is also heavily concentrated in itself: Samsung and SK Hynix alone account for more than 40% of the index.
“Buying it is really a concentrated bet on two companies,” he said.
Newton flagged the “meaningful” underweight to US large-cap equities relative to a benchmark like MSCI World: “a deliberate bet that has arguably cost some return in recent years”, but one that “reflects a clear and considered view of where the next cycle of outperformance lies”.
All in all, the portfolio should work, said Newton, “assuming it has been held for some time rather than constructed at today's prices”.
The ‘pie’ creators don’t have to follow a uniform philosophy or process, so it’s unclear how valuations and other metrics are accounted for in how the portfolio comes together.
A further point he made: “This is an unapologetically high-conviction, momentum-driven portfolio with a commensurately high-risk profile.
“It is concentrated in themes that are working right now, and momentum, by its nature, can reverse quickly. It therefore requires close management, rather than being tucked away and reviewed in a year or so's time.”
Each investor who decides to copy the allocation gets exposure at the point in time in which they buy, then it’s up to them to keep up with the updates if and when the creator shares them.
On performance, McDermott said that if the 36% return claimed for 2025 is to be intended as target, it is “an ambitious target by any standard and unlikely to be repeatable in normal market conditions,” he said.
“It is rare to have a collection of specific themes all firing at once, year after year”.
The possible adjustments
Admans suggested to first ask what the portfolio is trying to achieve.
If it is held as a long-term growth portfolio, he would increase the broad global equity core materially, adding to the iShares Core MSCI World as the anchor.
“I would then reduce the more thematic positions into smaller satellite exposures and consider adding some lower volatility exposure, but that is dependent on the objective of the portfolio amongst other factors.”
The tweaked portfolio would be “less exciting on paper, but more robust”.
McDermott said to the most notable gap is in emerging markets and Asia outside South Korea, which he would access via active managers, who “consistently add value over passive in that space”.
His picks were GQG Partners Emerging Markets Equity and FSSA Asia Focus. He also suggested Baillie Gifford Japanese for robotics exposure and M&G Global Listed Infrastructure to smooth volatility with inflation-linked cashflows.