Asset Classes Explained With Your Own Holdings: What Each One Is For

What you need

Paste the snapshot template from this page. For this prompt, the names and categories of your assets matter more than precise values, because the model sorts each holding into an asset class before it explains anything.

Write a short description next to anything the name alone does not explain, for example "global share index fund", "pension fund, mostly bonds", "gold coins" or "flat rented to a tenant". A ticker or a fund's brand name tells the model little on its own, and a wrong guess at this stage carries through every percentage that follows.

Include holdings that are easy to forget, such as cash left in a brokerage account, a workplace pension or an old savings account you rarely check. Debts stay in the snapshot as usual, but this prompt mostly looks at the asset side. Put every value in one currency so the model can give each class a share of your total.

No extra lines are needed below the snapshot. The prompt itself asks the model to cover three typical situations, so you see how the role of each class changes with the goal.

Here is my financial snapshot. Use only these numbers.

Currency: [e.g. EUR]
Date: [today's date]
Age: [optional]

ASSETS
[name] — [category: cash / stocks / ETFs / crypto / property / metals / other] — [value]
[name] — [category] — [value]
...

LIABILITIES
[name] — [type: mortgage / car loan / credit card / student loan / other] — [outstanding balance] — [interest rate if known]
...

CONTEXT (optional but improves the answer)
Monthly income after tax: [amount]
Monthly spending: [amount]
Amount I add to savings or investments each month: [amount]
Value of the same assets 12 months ago: [amount]

The prompt

Copy this exact text and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini directly beneath your snapshot block.

You are a financial educator. Using only my snapshot above, explain the main
asset classes and where my holdings fit.

1. Explain five asset classes in plain language: shares (equities), bonds (fixed
   income), real estate, commodities such as gold, and cash or cash equivalents.
   For each one, say how it earns money, what usually makes it fall, and how
   quickly it can be sold.
2. Sort every asset in my snapshot into one of these classes and give each class
   its share of my total assets. Put anything that does not fit cleanly, such as
   crypto or a fund that mixes shares and bonds, on a separate line and explain
   why.
3. Describe the job each class usually does in a portfolio (growth, income or
   cushioning falls) and how the classes tend to behave against each other.
4. Name the classes I hold none of, and describe what they typically add and
   what they cost in return.
5. Show how the role of each class changes in three typical situations: money
   needed within three years, long-term growth over 20 years, and living off
   the income.

Ask about any holding you cannot identify instead of guessing. No buy or sell
recommendations and no specific funds or securities.

What good output looks like

A good answer opens with five short entries, one per asset class. Each covers how the class earns money (price growth, interest or rent, and for gold only a change in price), what usually makes it fall, and how fast it can be sold. Property should come out as the slowest to sell and the hardest to sell in part.

The sorting step follows. Say your snapshot lists a global share fund worth €26,000, a US bond fund worth $11,000 (€10,000 at an example rate of $1.10 per euro), CZK 250,000 in a savings account (€10,000 at 25 koruna per euro) and €4,000 in crypto, €50,000 in total. The model should show shares at 52%, bonds at 20% and cash at 20%, with crypto as a separate 8% line and a reason it sits apart.

The section on roles should be plain about behaviour: shares for long-run growth with deep falls along the way, bonds for income and often a cushion when shares drop, though both can fall in the same year when interest rates rise sharply.

Then come the missing classes, here property and commodities, with what each would add and what it costs in liquidity, fees or price swings. The three situations should give visibly different answers, with cash and short-term bonds doing more of the work when the money is needed soon.

What this can't tell you

The model sorts holdings by their names and your descriptions. It cannot look inside a fund, so a fund labelled balanced or multi-asset might hold 30% shares or 80%, and the split it shows is a guess unless you paste the fund's own breakdown. Crypto, commodities and pension funds are easy to misfile, so check those lines first.

It has no live prices or interest rates unless you give them, which means any statement about what bonds or savings pay today may be out of date. Make sure the class shares add to 100%. The prompt explains what each class does. It does not judge whether your mix suits you, and it does not cover how each class is taxed in your country.

Doing this without the retyping

Sumio has this prompt built in as "Asset Class Exploration", one of the 62 prompts in the app. It runs on the whole balance sheet you keep there, with each holding in a category and prices and exchange rates updating automatically, so the values are current and in your base currency. Your records are stored on your device. Running the analysis sends the figures it needs to an AI provider, which produces the answer. The AI assistant comes with Sumio Premium.