Methodology

LookThrough surfaces the actual holdings inside Australian super funds. Every figure on the site traces back to a fund's own regulatory disclosure. This page explains where the data comes from, how we turn it into the tables you see, and what it does and doesn't cover.

Where the data comes from

Australian superannuation funds must publish a Portfolio Holdings Disclosure (PHD) for each investment option under section 1017BB of the Corporations Act 2001, in the format set by Schedule 8D of the Corporations Regulations. It is published twice a year and lists, as at a given reporting date:

• Table 1 — each holding, with its value and weighting;
• Table 2 — derivatives held;
• Table 3 — the synthetic exposure of derivatives by asset class;
• Table 4 — the synthetic exposure of derivatives by currency.

We take each fund's published file exactly as issued and keep an immutable copy of the original (with a content hash) so every figure is traceable to its source.

How holdings are resolved

Reported names are messy and vary between funds. We map each reported name to a single canonical security in a security master, so the same company is recognised across funds. Each security has a stable, write-once URL; name corrections add an alias rather than changing the address. Names we can't yet confidently match are left unresolved rather than guessed.

How holdings are aggregated

Within an option a single security can appear across several line items (sub-portfolios and currency splits). We sum value and weighting in exact decimal arithmetic in the database — never in floating-point — to get one figure per fund and option. The physical (disclosed holdings) and the synthetic (derivative) effect from Tables 3 and 4 are always shown separately and never netted together.

The “as at” date and staleness

Every page shows the reporting date the figures are “as at”. A disclosure is a point-in-time snapshot; it does not update between reporting periods. When a fund restates a period, we load the correction as a new revision that supersedes the prior one — we never overwrite history. Because disclosure is twice-yearly, figures can be several months old; the visible date is the source of truth for how current they are.

What's covered — and what isn't

• Listed and otherwise itemised holdings are shown with their disclosed value and weighting.
• Internally-managed unlisted assets are often disclosed by name only, with their value reported at the asset-class level. We show those holdings explicitly, marked “name only”, and include their value in the asset-class allocation — so a holdings table never silently understates the portfolio.
• We do not look through pooled vehicles (for example, an externally-managed fund) into their underlying holdings — only what the fund itself discloses.
• Weightings can under-count: very small holdings round to 0.00%, so the listed weightings may sum to a little under 100%. The disclosed value total is the more reliable check.

What this is — and isn't

LookThrough is factual disclosure surfacing: we reproduce and organise what funds already publish. Nothing here is financial advice, a rating, a ranking or a recommendation, and we don't editorialise about which fund or option is “best”. See data & coverage for scope and provenance detail.