sqh
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Before P2P, savers put a guinea in a piggy bank, now they smash the banks to become guinea pigs.
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Post by sqh on Mar 2, 2015 21:06:38 GMT
There has been several comments about bidding steps on Rebs. I wonder if lenders are happy with the current 1% step, or whether they would like something different.
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david42
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Post by david42 on Mar 2, 2015 22:02:21 GMT
I vote for 1% bidding steps because large steps reward early bidding and reduce the last minute bidding frenzy that we see on FC, which penalises small investors in favour of the bots and professional flippers. As GSV3MIaC says, a better way to level the playing field would be to give all successful bids the same best / marginal rate.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Mar 3, 2015 8:47:49 GMT
Seconded. Could the OP please run the same poll over on the FC forum, pretty please ... Not that FC will take a blind bit of notice...
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wysiati
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Post by wysiati on Mar 3, 2015 10:14:18 GMT
I vote for 1% bidding steps because large steps reward early bidding and reduce the last minute bidding frenzy that we see on FC, which penalises small investors in favour of the bots and professional flippers. As GSV3MIaC says, a better way to level the playing field would be to give all successful bids the same best / marginal rate. It does not level the playing field / prevent last minute frenzies (for which there is just not enough competition - hence the higher final rates on the platform - unless of course you believe there is a considered massive additional risk premium which is being built in by the crowd for loans appearing on Rebs) of itself. In fact having a larger bid step specifically favours bot bidders such as GSV3MIaC as they are better able to ensure their bids are at/near the top rate - do you think he has been pushing for this on the FC forum out of the goodness of his heart? It also favours large block bidders on a less well supported platform such as Rebs as they can swoop in and provide a large chunk, if not the bulk, of funding at what becomes the marginal rate. If you are a small bidder who has even the next bid rate down then you will face the prospect of selling at a loss to match the best rate on offer from that main bidder. A smaller bid step reduces the risk that you will find yourself trapped by a large secondary market seller unless. Realistically there is no compelling incentive for the platform to change from such a policy as long as it remains relatively dependent on so few large bidders.
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david42
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Post by david42 on Mar 3, 2015 12:48:32 GMT
The current bidding system rewards those who can bid at the last minute because they can get closer to the best / marginal rate. With 0.1% steps a last minute bidder can get within 0.1% of the best rate. 1% steps helps to offset that reward because the last minute bidder is now getting 1% less than those who bid earlier at the best / marginal rate.
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wysiati
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Post by wysiati on Mar 3, 2015 13:22:52 GMT
The current bidding system rewards those who can bid at the last minute because they can get closer to the best / marginal rate. With 0.1% steps a last minute bidder can get within 0.1% of the best rate. 1% steps helps to offset that reward because the last minute bidder is now getting 1% less than those who bid earlier at the best / marginal rate. That scenario is easily overwhelmed by the circumstances described above, which I have witnessed MANY times on this platform. In your scenario if a larger bidder chooses to undercut, which they can, and take out any higher bids then you are stuffed anyway, and if you rebid then you suffer a much larger disadvantage to the marginal rate than you would on other platforms. If you are 2 steps below then forget it. The 1% increment, as described to me by a senior person at Rebs, was introduced to speed up the rate at which the marginal interest rate available on an auction moves downwards and so help overcome the issue of average % offers on the platform being so high as to put off some potential borrowers. If that was the intention then looking at the outcomes it has failed to adequately address the relative cost of funding issue.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Mar 3, 2015 13:38:42 GMT
I vote for 1% bidding steps because large steps reward early bidding and reduce the last minute bidding frenzy that we see on FC, which penalises small investors in favour of the bots and professional flippers. As GSV3MIaC says, a better way to level the playing field would be to give all successful bids the same best / marginal rate. It does not level the playing field / prevent last minute frenzies (for which there is just not enough competition - hence the higher final rates on the platform - unless of course you believe there is a considered massive additional risk premium which is being built in by the crowd for loans appearing on Rebs) of itself. In fact having a larger bid step specifically favours bot bidders such as GSV3MIaC as they are better able to ensure their bids are at/near the top rate - do you think he has been pushing for this on the FC forum out of the goodness of his heart? You obviously don't understand the mechanics of bots at all .. the 0.1% step (or 0.0001% step) favours the bots enormously. With a 1% step, the incentive is to get in EARLY and at the RIGHT level. With itsy bits steps the incentive is to get in late, one step under the top (which bots are excellent at). Do you think I also advocate 'everyone should be awarded the marginal rate', or 'lets have dynamic bidding at the server' (same thing, in practise) in order to favour the bots? If you actually READ (all) that I've written on the FC forum(s) over the years you'd know I am massively anti the current system (broken autobid and 0.1% steps and last minute bidding frenzy by bots with absolutely no social conscience) which massively penalises Joe Ordinary, the autobidder, in order to give two or three major flippers a chance to get high marginal rates subsidised by the Joe (assuming that you need to meet the current avg rates to get the loans accepted). The 'autobid buys anything at par' is also there to backstop them. I am not in favour of fixed rates .. I like to decide what I think a loan is worth. But having decided I'd bid anything down to 13%, I'm B&ggered if I see why I should accept 13% when some last minute bidder gets it at 14.6%, or whatever... if 14.6% (or in my world, 14%) is available, then I want some too .. I want =everyone= to have some, in fact.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Mar 3, 2015 13:51:43 GMT
The current bidding system rewards those who can bid at the last minute because they can get closer to the best / marginal rate. With 0.1% steps a last minute bidder can get within 0.1% of the best rate. 1% steps helps to offset that reward because the last minute bidder is now getting 1% less than those who bid earlier at the best / marginal rate. That scenario is easily overwhelmed by the circumstances described above, which I have witnessed MANY times on this platform. In your scenario if a larger bidder chooses to undercut, which they can, and take out any higher bids then you are stuffed anyway, and if you rebid then you suffer a much larger disadvantage to the marginal rate than you would on other platforms. If you are 2 steps below then forget it. This assumes that you are all buying to sell. If you are buying to hold you can always put up with a lower rate than a flipper. However the 'everyone gets the marginal rate' solves this problem, no? And encourages people to bid their 'best and final offer' good and early. If you bid 13% as your best and final offer and some (flipper, or large punter) wants to knock you our by bidding 12%, one assumes (if it really was your best offer) you couldn't care less. With 0.1% step, everyone starts at 15% and then there are dozens of failed bids (which bots are really good at noticing and fixing) before the rate comes down to 8%. Why not go for 0.00001% steps, that's really make it 'last bot to hit the button wins the prize', which is what you seem to be advocating ('the rate doesn't matter as long as I'm in one step under the top when the music stops'). I personally think the step size SHOULD be large enough to make a difference to both the lender and the borrower. There should be some 'do I really want to bid it at the next lower rate' thought, rather than automatic 'hit the button for a 1 step decrease' reflex. However, as I said earlier, the 0.1% steps are really dandy for the existing bots, so if everyone (at FC) wants to keep it that way, I'm quite happy to go with 'if you can't beat them, join them' which is what I did. Your saying, 'it makes it easy for minor flippers to compete with the big ones', which is probably true. I'd prefer a solution which made it possible for Joe Average to get a good deal too.
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wysiati
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Post by wysiati on Mar 3, 2015 14:17:35 GMT
It does not level the playing field / prevent last minute frenzies (for which there is just not enough competition - hence the higher final rates on the platform - unless of course you believe there is a considered massive additional risk premium which is being built in by the crowd for loans appearing on Rebs) of itself. In fact having a larger bid step specifically favours bot bidders such as GSV3MIaC as they are better able to ensure their bids are at/near the top rate - do you think he has been pushing for this on the FC forum out of the goodness of his heart? You obviously don't understand the mechanics of bots at all .. the 0.1% step (or 0.0001% step) favours the bots enormously. With a 1% step, the incentive is to get in EARLY and at the RIGHT level. With itsy bits steps the incentive is to get in late, one step under the top (which bots are excellent at). Do you think I also advocate 'everyone should be awarded the marginal rate', or 'lets have dynamic bidding at the server' (same thing, in practise) in order to favour the bots? If you actually READ (all) that I've written on the FC forum(s) over the years you'd know I am massively anti the current system (broken autobid and 0.1% steps and last minute bidding frenzy by bots with absolutely no social conscience) which massively penalises Joe Ordinary, the autobidder, in order to give two or three major flippers a chance to get high marginal rates subsidised by the Joe (assuming that you need to meet the current avg rates to get the loans accepted). The 'autobid buys anything at par' is also there to backstop them. I am not in favour of fixed rates .. I like to decide what I think a loan is worth. But having decided I'd bid anything down to 13%, I'm B&ggered if I see why I should accept 13% when some last minute bidder gets it at 14.6%, or whatever... if 14.6% (or in my world, 14%) is available, then I want some too .. I want =everyone= to have some, in fact. You don't appear to understand all aspects bots that well yourself despite building/using them as you keep accusing various manual bidders on FC of being bots. Either you are sufficiently clueless that you can't spot them consistently or are just being cynical / misleading as part of your lobbying efforts. This end of auction talk of yours is a distractor as most bots (including yours) will not participate as they are geared to a flipping strategy and the rates are typically too low at that stage to be of interest. You care about being at/near the marginal rate at all times where funds permit, which means bidding up front. Bigger increments allow less margin of error in estimating the marginal rate which favours bots, i.e. you. Dynamic bidding (not the same as marginal rate for all) would arguably be the best solution and, interestingly, as part of the ThinCats white label agreement the Rebs platform provider apparently will need to incorporate dynamic bidding capability. So there will be no technical excuse for failing to include it on the Rebs platform itself. If dynamic bidding is implemented on Rebs it might see some re-consider using the platform as some find the current bidding system a disincentive.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Mar 3, 2015 17:20:13 GMT
You obviously don't understand the mechanics of bots at all .. the 0.1% step (or 0.0001% step) favours the bots enormously. With a 1% step, the incentive is to get in EARLY and at the RIGHT level. With itsy bits steps the incentive is to get in late, one step under the top (which bots are excellent at). Do you think I also advocate 'everyone should be awarded the marginal rate', or 'lets have dynamic bidding at the server' (same thing, in practise) in order to favour the bots? If you actually READ (all) that I've written on the FC forum(s) over the years you'd know I am massively anti the current system (broken autobid and 0.1% steps and last minute bidding frenzy by bots with absolutely no social conscience) which massively penalises Joe Ordinary, the autobidder, in order to give two or three major flippers a chance to get high marginal rates subsidised by the Joe (assuming that you need to meet the current avg rates to get the loans accepted). The 'autobid buys anything at par' is also there to backstop them. I am not in favour of fixed rates .. I like to decide what I think a loan is worth. But having decided I'd bid anything down to 13%, I'm B&ggered if I see why I should accept 13% when some last minute bidder gets it at 14.6%, or whatever... if 14.6% (or in my world, 14%) is available, then I want some too .. I want =everyone= to have some, in fact. You don't appear to understand all aspects bots that well yourself despite building/using them as you keep accusing various manual bidders on FC of being bots. Either you are sufficiently clueless that you can't spot them consistently or are just being cynical / misleading as part of your lobbying efforts. This end of auction talk of yours is a distractor as most bots (including yours) will not participate as they are geared to a flipping strategy and the rates are typically too low at that stage to be of interest. You care about being at/near the marginal rate at all times where funds permit, which means bidding up front. Bigger increments allow less margin of error in estimating the marginal rate which favours bots, i.e. you. Dynamic bidding (not the same as marginal rate for all) would arguably be the best solution and, interestingly, as part of the ThinCats white label agreement the Rebs platform provider apparently will need to incorporate dynamic bidding capability. So there will be no technical excuse for failing to include it on the Rebs platform itself. If dynamic bidding is implemented on Rebs it might see some re-consider using the platform as some find the current bidding system a disincentive. Which manual bidders do you believe I accused of bothood? Please point me at the post.. If anything I believe I erred the other way. The end of auction is where the site typically collapses, for which bots are frequently (and sometimes erroneously) blamed. Yes, I am usually out of the auction by then with my 1-10 bids, but not always. There is NO error in estimating the marginal rate with a bot ... IMO larger steps favour manual bidders. Let me do a thought experiment - start of the auction .. there are 5 available bids - 8,10,12,14 or 16%. What chance a person can pick the right answer right then. OK, now let's have 0.1% steps .. what chance now?? And the bot .. oh it loves the 0.1% steps because it can be there all the time. FC uses 0.1% steps - it is infested with bots and flippers. ReBS uses 1% steps - I see little evidence of any bots (but OK, there are a few flippers/underwriters). A bot is adding up as many 90 different bid buckets (on FC), deciding where the marginal rate is going to be (based on history and forecasts .. oh, and the FC data is typically wrong and out of date), projecting forward and sticking a bid in (1-10 bids in my case, 3-4 seconds apart - other bots go a bit faster, like 100 a minute). Your average manual bidder is still going to be looking for the calculator at this point. If there are only half a dozen bid options, the problem is reduced for the poor human. I'm not sure why you think dynamic bidding is not the same as 'marginal rate for all' .. assuming everyone sets the dynamic bidder to start at max (why wouldn't you?) and stop at their best and final. It is just way simpler to avoid the ripple down bidding by saying 'start at your best and final and we'll raise it up to the marginal once we know what that has to be to fill the auction'. Do you SUPPORT 'marginal rate for all'? (I do, obviously, which is what bots attempt to achieve), or do you think the suckers should be allowed to bid 6% if that's what they are happy with??
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wysiati
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Post by wysiati on Mar 4, 2015 11:26:27 GMT
You don't appear to understand all aspects bots that well yourself despite building/using them as you keep accusing various manual bidders on FC of being bots. Either you are sufficiently clueless that you can't spot them consistently or are just being cynical / misleading as part of your lobbying efforts. This end of auction talk of yours is a distractor as most bots (including yours) will not participate as they are geared to a flipping strategy and the rates are typically too low at that stage to be of interest. You care about being at/near the marginal rate at all times where funds permit, which means bidding up front. Bigger increments allow less margin of error in estimating the marginal rate which favours bots, i.e. you. Dynamic bidding (not the same as marginal rate for all) would arguably be the best solution and, interestingly, as part of the ThinCats white label agreement the Rebs platform provider apparently will need to incorporate dynamic bidding capability. So there will be no technical excuse for failing to include it on the Rebs platform itself. If dynamic bidding is implemented on Rebs it might see some re-consider using the platform as some find the current bidding system a disincentive. Which manual bidders do you believe I accused of bothood? Please point me at the post.. If anything I believe I erred the other way. The end of auction is where the site typically collapses, for which bots are frequently (and sometimes erroneously) blamed. Yes, I am usually out of the auction by then with my 1-10 bids, but not always. There is NO error in estimating the marginal rate with a bot ... IMO larger steps favour manual bidders. Let me do a thought experiment - start of the auction .. there are 5 available bids - 8,10,12,14 or 16%. What chance a person can pick the right answer right then. OK, now let's have 0.1% steps .. what chance now?? And the bot .. oh it loves the 0.1% steps because it can be there all the time. FC uses 0.1% steps - it is infested with bots and flippers. ReBS uses 1% steps - I see little evidence of any bots (but OK, there are a few flippers/underwriters). A bot is adding up as many 90 different bid buckets (on FC), deciding where the marginal rate is going to be (based on history and forecasts .. oh, and the FC data is typically wrong and out of date), projecting forward and sticking a bid in (1-10 bids in my case, 3-4 seconds apart - other bots go a bit faster, like 100 a minute). Your average manual bidder is still going to be looking for the calculator at this point. If there are only half a dozen bid options, the problem is reduced for the poor human. I'm not sure why you think dynamic bidding is not the same as 'marginal rate for all' .. assuming everyone sets the dynamic bidder to start at max (why wouldn't you?) and stop at their best and final. It is just way simpler to avoid the ripple down bidding by saying 'start at your best and final and we'll raise it up to the marginal once we know what that has to be to fill the auction'. Do you SUPPORT 'marginal rate for all'? (I do, obviously, which is what bots attempt to achieve), or do you think the suckers should be allowed to bid 6% if that's what they are happy with?? You are missing the fundamental point that a (bot) flipping strategy (in the absence of very deep pockets) requires sufficient liquidity to quickly recycle funds. That is fundamentally lacking on rebs relative to FC, for example. The issue is compounded by the larger bid steps if you are not at the top rate. Another misconception is that if users want to sell that it is purely motivated by profit. For those of us who try to monitor things post-auction if there is a fundamental negative change you may want to get out and ask questions later. If you are stuck behind a huge block and suffer a 1-2% yield disadvantage then not only are your chances of being trapped in a bad loan higher but the cost of exit will be much higher than the fee. The discontinuity caused when FC initially introduced the minimum bid rates was unhelpful to many lenders and the effect here can be similar. As for dynamic bidding ceilings and floors will differ and that is an important element of choice for some users. On FC there are minimum bid rates to help avoid a scenario where expected returns at the point of investment for any given loan are negative, for example. In your rather stupid scenario masses of people should also be prevented from investing in equities which represent a more extreme risk/reward profile. With dynamic bids price discovery can be much quicker. In its absence on FC etc it could save time/effort to take down the marginal rate by 10%+ just to shake out some of the pure resellers. Also, there is no requirement/need to guess the final rate at the start of an auction if you hadn't noticed. I think your 'I am advocating for the little people' speech is just BS. If FC is 'infested' with bots and flippers you are prime member of that infestation. So why not fall on your sword and accept a non-competitive set discount rate for all bidders or go fixed rate if you are so magnanimous and genuinely want equality of outcomes for lenders? Why not increase secondary market fees to deter pure flipping? It would imagine that it would have rather more of an impact on you than they would on me, for example. I am not advocating for borrowers over lenders but I imaging they would prefer to have the weighted average rate people are prepared to pay and a platform must balance the interests of both lenders and borrowers. The introduction of minimum bid rates has already seen a significant transfer of value from the latter to the former. The rebs MD's comment in the other thread based on a tiny sample size of 15 is just laughable/embarrassing.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Mar 4, 2015 11:56:00 GMT
If you want to sell because the loan has gone bad, you can always sell at a discount.
I would be delighted for FC to turn off ALL bots, or at least rein them in to give humans a better chance. Yes really. I've even submitted to FC tech team suggestions for what might be reasonable (the API limit of 3 bids a minute is probably a bit too strict). Feel free to go ask them.
You didn't answer the question as to whether YOU support 'marginal rate for all'. Well actually you didn't answer any questions at all, did you.
Your ideas of dynamic bidding obviously differ from mine - when I say dynamic bidding I mean you enter a start rate and a bail-out rate below which I won't go. That comes out to exactly the same thing as bidding my bailout rate, but being awarded whatever the top rate turns out to be, without all the ripple down bids on the way. Go model it and see (the result can be varied depending on WHEN you ripple down the bids .. before or after doing anything with the new entrant, but that's second order IMO).
You have still failed to explain why you think any bot is advantaged by a 1% step (or disadvantaged by 0.1%, or 0.0001% or 0.1576% steps). The bot could care less - the more complicated it is for the manual bidder the better the bot likes it. Ergo my suggestion for 1% steps has nothing at all to do with bots. Anyway, I'm through with this discussion .. you are outvoted (so you moan that the poll is not representative).
Oh you also failed to tell me who/when I accused of bothood .. basically you don't answer any questions, provide any rationales, you just launch into attack mode.
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wysiati
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Post by wysiati on Mar 4, 2015 12:22:40 GMT
Sorry, but based on the content of a body of posts which includes some repeated erroneous/false claims I do not believe you and reserve my right to remain sceptical.
Go back over your own posts and you will find the users you regularly name. Ultimately, of those statements which have been made which are false, for example some of those in relation to bot vs. manual bidding, they do not matter as FC knows the status of the users. Your bot candidates have not seen any imposed restrictions on the basis that their behaviour has not changed as far as I can tell.
Dynamic bidding I refer to in the accepted sense as used on TC etc. Due to system limitations many users have multiple dynamic bids with differing parameters so there is not necessarily a single floor rate/bid amount. Behaviour can and will vary for apparent substitute loans. New information can come to light during an auction which changes preferences, etc etc.
My preference is for freedom of choice and otherwise probably the AC model with take it or leave it fixed rates and some better (relatively speaking) investor tools which provide more of a level playing field vs. bot creators etc.
I was not tying the bid increment issue simply to bot use - on Rebs the issue is mainly with large block bidders.
Rebs is irrelevant to me as a platform so the outcome of any vote is not important.
You have not answered any of the questions put to you so are you going to answer them or, despite having criticised a perceived lack of direct answers to your own questions, which subsequently were addressed, do you feel that you do not need to observe the same standards you appear to expect of others? Is that not being hypocritical?
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Post by Admin on Mar 4, 2015 18:04:26 GMT
Mod note: A PM has been sent to the author about the tone of this post and we are awaiting a reply. Edit: Reading the entire thread, it looks like the PM should have gone to GSV3MIaC too. Either way, definitely time to chill.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Mar 4, 2015 19:05:20 GMT
Guess the voting audience here may be biassed (by what ReBS currently uses?) since a similar poll over on the general board is getting a rather different answer.
Oh, dear admin, consider me chilled, despite being accused of lying (hmm, can we sue for slander on here?). 8>.
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