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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2016 12:37:34 GMT
I gave up trying to buy on the SM several weeks ago - no matter how long I spent refreshing the page and how fast I was, I was always beaten by Bots. It was pretty obvious weeks ago it was Bots as no human could work that fast.
So the SM is great for selling but unless you want to sit up all night on the off chance the Bot runners have turned their Bots off, you can't buy anything unless you know how to set up a Bot.
I have a fair sum invested in SS loans but the problem I can see comign is that the size of my investment will reduce very much. New loans are coming through slowly at the moment and I got the £300 on the last one that I thnk most people got. So as my loans mature or reach maturity I won't be able to re-invest that money via the SM and within a year my holdings will have reduced to whatever my pre-fund allocations were. So the only big investors left on SS will be the people who, in my opinion, are abusing the system with Bots.
SS should be an investment opportunity open equally to all users/supporters and not just a minority of techno geeks who know how to set up Bots.
In my opinion SS should add an explicit term to their T&Cs stating in black and white that Bot use is not allowed and Bot users accounts will be terminated if they are discovered.
There's more than enough demand on SS to make the SM work well and fast for every one without Bots. I'd rather sell loan parts to a person using fingers than an automated piece of code set up by somebody gaining an unfair advantage who is probably watching TV or in bed.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Jan 12, 2016 12:52:37 GMT
..... c) Fixing the problem once and for all by creating an AC-like allotment model for the SM, where buyers set targets for the loans they want more of and parts are divided amongst those with unfilled targets when they're offered for sale. Option c) is not without its technical challenges but, once built and enabled, consigns the bots problem to history and means SS management can focus on the dramatically more important task of sourcing and funding high quality loans..... SS will need to develop a reliable system for displaying the accumulation total of loan part holdings for people buying on the SM, (even if each separate holding part remains on SS's record). Owning 286+ separate loan parts <£1 of Bloggs's Care Home would not do! AC can do that. So does FK.
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Jan 12, 2016 12:56:21 GMT
..... c) Fixing the problem once and for all by creating an AC-like allotment model for the SM, where buyers set targets for the loans they want more of and parts are divided amongst those with unfilled targets when they're offered for sale. Option c) is not without its technical challenges but, once built and enabled, consigns the bots problem to history and means SS management can focus on the dramatically more important task of sourcing and funding high quality loans..... SS will need to develop a reliable system for displaying the accumulation total of loan part holdings for people buying on the SM, (even if each separate holding part remains on SS's record). Owning 286+ separate loan parts <£1 of Bloggs's Care Home would not do! AC can do that. So does FK. Also for accepting sell orders in rather larger chunks than "£1 at a time" too!
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jan 12, 2016 12:59:41 GMT
Although AC distribute even smaller shrapnel than I think makes sense, but yes, I'd vote for an AC type allocation system (I think I made that clear several days ago). Heck I'd settle for a lottery system. What I won't do is sit staring at a screen for hours, at 1AM, trying to beat a bot with my fumbling fingers.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jan 12, 2016 13:05:30 GMT
SS will need to develop a reliable system for displaying the accumulation total of loan part holdings for people buying on the SM, (even if each separate holding part remains on SS's record). Owning 286+ separate loan parts <£1 of Bloggs's Care Home would not do! Umm, the list view of the available page does that. The column before the available total shows the total holding. Or am I missing something?
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Post by sunspot on Jan 12, 2016 13:09:10 GMT
I would set the minimum fragment size at £100. It would take a while to clean up the existing market, and this figure might need to be reviewed later if the loan book increases in size, but right now, that seems like a sensible figure.
£0.01 is just silly and encourages blackhat tactics.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Jan 12, 2016 13:17:19 GMT
SS will need to develop a reliable system for displaying the accumulation total of loan part holdings for people buying on the SM, (even if each separate holding part remains on SS's record). Owning 286+ separate loan parts <£1 of Bloggs's Care Home would not do! Umm, the list view of the available page does that. The column before the available total shows the total holding. Or am I missing something? What I am getting at is that every loan part I buy is a separate entity when I actually want to sell it. Here is a screen shot of part of one of my loans. Elsewhere I can easily see my total stake, but here you can see several of the little bits - happily not hundreds of them, but that will be the case for anyone mopping up £1 bits, or smaller - like the many 1p parts which have been flying around lately. Attachments:
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jan 12, 2016 13:22:35 GMT
I would set the minimum fragment size at £100. Bit of a discouragement to the small guy. Why not £20, as seen in many other places?
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Jan 12, 2016 13:25:47 GMT
Pre "improved" website SS did have a minimum part size (£25??) which could only be less if buying the last remnant of an available sale part.
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Jan 12, 2016 13:40:20 GMT
Pre "improved" website SS did have a minimum part size (£25??) which could only be less if buying the last remnant of an available sale part. £50 I think or was that for sales?, £100 was min bid on boats & on SM except where less available?
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Post by meledor on Jan 12, 2016 14:07:16 GMT
I haven't spent much time on here for a while (whilst a lot of others seem to be here all the time - they must have huge amounts invested for the interest earned to warrant all the time spent when not a lot is happening!), yet the same comments about SS need to change are still being repeated.
I do hope SS resist all these calls to ape Assetz. The AC system in my opinion is rubbish - it generates so many small loan parts it is difficult to keep track of and does not cure the underlying problem of excess demand. There were AC loans that I never got even a small shrapnel piece because they were in such demand. Making SS overly complex is just going to ruin it without actually solving the problem.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jan 12, 2016 15:03:57 GMT
There is no reason why the system should not aggregate all your small parts into one, as it collects them.
As for complicated .. I disagree.
All you have to do it place an 'I want to buy £100 in loan xyz' .. which you have to do already (but can only do in the 3 seconds the loan might have an available part .. repeat until you get lucky).
The extra wrinkle is that the system remembers you want it, and tries to fill the demand in the future, as things come up for sale .. on any basis you like .. random allocation, queue, fair shares, whatever.
At any time it'll tell you 'you have £x in loan xyz, and an unfilled buy request for the remaining £100-x"
If you regard that as unduly complicated I suggest you stay a safe distance from partial differential equation, matrix math and tensors. 8>.
Yes AC manage to make it look much harder than that, with multiple accounts (which you need to prefund, with real cash, from a feeder account, etc etc etc) but none of that is relevant to a functional SM.
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Post by meledor on Jan 12, 2016 15:18:57 GMT
There is no reason why the system should not aggregate all your small parts into one, as it collects them. As for complicated .. I disagree. All you have to do it place an 'I want to buy £100 in loan xyz' .. which you have to do already (but can only do in the 3 seconds the loan might have an available part .. repeat until you get lucky). The extra wrinkle is that the system remembers you want it, and tries to fill the demand in the future, as things come up for sale .. on any basis you like .. random allocation, queue, fair shares, whatever. At any time it'll tell you 'you have £x in loan xyz, and an unfilled buy request for the remaining £100-x" If you regard that as unduly complicated I suggest you stay a safe distance from partial differential equation, matrix math and tensors. 8>. Yes AC manage to make it look much harder than that, with multiple accounts (which you need to prefund, with real cash, from a feeder account, etc etc etc) but none of that is relevant to a functional SM.
All you have written is explained how AC works. I know because I use AC (but much less than before). The problem which you haven't covered is:
a) you end up with loads of shrapnel with different start dates - very difficult to keep track of in terms of interest calculations. When I say difficult I do not mean mathemetically hard but unnecessarily cumbersome for the amounts involved.
b) it does not solve the issue of excess demand - loans that were popular you don't even get shrapnel.
AC solved the problem of excess demand by having riskier loans (risky in terms of the borrower lacking credibility rather than asset security) or else reducing interest rates and then offering collective funds at even lower rates. Let's hope SS do not follow suit.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 12, 2016 15:45:23 GMT
Pre-funding has already been limited to the amount you have invested. So new people don't seem to have a chance there. AFAIK, SS solved that problem by setting the minimum pre-funding limit to £10k. New investors can pre-fund up to £10k in every new loan and therefore should be able to build up a good-sized diversified portfolio reasonably quickly. It would be better if it still were possible to diversify via the SM, as it was a few months ago. However, until savingstream admit that bots are making it virtually impossible to buy any parts on the SM for all their investors except the ones using a bot, and take some action against the bot users, then that situation won't improve.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jan 12, 2016 15:53:20 GMT
...and does not cure the underlying problem of excess demand. And there we have the cause, in one. Meanwhile, people are complaining that SS might be reducing demand. Umm, OK. The only other alternative is increasing supply - and I'd rather live with under-supply of good quality loans than an adequate sufficiency of rubbish.
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