niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Sept 17, 2014 16:15:28 GMT
Although I generally take a small slice of each wind turbine, I think I may sit this one out. Nothing particular just a cumulation of little niggles. (i) Not pre-accredited with Ofgem. (ii) Inexperienced developer with no apparent background in the area (iii) Insurance cover not detailed. IP mentions "insurance as per details above" with no details given (iv) Not my favourite sponsor Also (v) No capital payment during the term of the loan. So whereas the other projects need to refinance 85% of the initial amount borrowed, this one is going to need to refinance 100% of that. I notice that there is very little interest, bidding wise, so perhaps it won't fly. It's good for an occasional loan to fail to fill, as it means the underwriter and lender due diligence is working.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Sept 17, 2014 9:26:06 GMT
Generally the larger the turbine the better the economics, and turbine sizes have steady grown from 25kW in the early 1970s to up to 6MW today. The larger turbines are taller to better catch higher faster wind and also have a better economy of scale.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Sept 15, 2014 14:16:38 GMT
Sadly for the UK, it's not hard to drum up nationalist support, as it's an emotive subject. It reminds me of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic's rhetoric before the breakup of Yugoslavia. He quickly secured his political position and popularity, but it all went sour not very long afterwards.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Sept 13, 2014 11:33:42 GMT
Probably not really AC direct fault but I find myself quite irritated by my outstanding shadow bids currently. They're not drawing down but they should be soon so I need to keep a whole bunch of cash ready. I'd like to double up on some more of the fine loans on the AM but it's clear that if I do, I'm unlikely to be able to sell them quick enough to satisfy any shadow call. So the shadow bid facility is preventing me investing! How mad is that? I agree that the shadow bid facility is not perfect (although a big help in reducing dead time). You could place, say, 5 shadow bids of £500 each, and hope they are not all drawn down at once, but with drawdowns being difficult to predict I find it is uncomfortable committing oneself unless all the funds are readily available. AC are gradually improving the platform over time, and I hope the new release will be a help. Hopefully we might (in time) get some facility for shadow bid / cash flow management so we can see expected shadow bid settlement calls, and expected repayments. When the AC loan manager checks each loan (weekly/fortnightly/monthly or according to his or her diary) they could simply update the system with the date, a brief comment and current drawdown estimate. A screen could then easily display a lender's cashflow position and expect requirements. One day we might even have a clever AI feature that allows us to earmark some loans parts for resale to raise money a day or two before a shadow settlement is due, and it would automatically sell just enough to cover the settlement. (Hopefully by then the aftermarket log jam might have cleared.)
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niceguy37
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Assetz Capital (AC)
Questions
Sept 13, 2014 11:12:10 GMT
Post by niceguy37 on Sept 13, 2014 11:12:10 GMT
You've made an assumption there The only answer that occurs to me is for AC to work to several decimal places and to remember any rounding loss, reimbursing it later when the fractions become significant. I agree that it is possible to work to several decimal places, but I'd question whether it's worth the effort of selling loan parts of £1 or less, unless it is the small remaining balance of an old amortizing loan. Unless you just have some small amount of repayment looking for a home, and AI does it for you, is it worth buying a £2 loan? As we get more and more loans on the system over time we probably want to avoid too much clutter. But we do want to allow small investors to buy up say £20 loan chunks in order to be able to diversify fairly quickly.
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niceguy37
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Assetz Capital (AC)
Questions
Sept 12, 2014 14:37:19 GMT
Post by niceguy37 on Sept 12, 2014 14:37:19 GMT
But I imagine that I can't run through my 60 odd loans just selling say £5 off the top of each to generate extra funds if needed? I.E. £20 minimum unit size still? Under discussion, but the implementation will work with loan units of any size. Maybe a £1 minimum but as I say that's under review. If the loan parts are too small then there's the risk that the interest will work out at less than a penny, so I think a minimum size should be £10 or £20, (or balance of loan if lower). Also too many trivial loans just adds system volume without significant value.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Sept 10, 2014 9:17:09 GMT
The recent "glitches" in calcs etc. (whilst being ex IT, I understand) have dented my confidence somewhat so I have withdrawn 50% of my available cash and deposited in RS (5 year 6.1%). I currently view RS as the go to "safe" house for my money and 6.1 (provision "secured") is fine by me. Likewise, I’ve switched cash from AC to RS although I’m still not convinced about 6 /6.1% for 5 years being a good bet. My concern over being locked in for 5 years is not being able to switch funds into an P2x ISA, as well as the obvious risk of rate rises over 5 years.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Sept 8, 2014 16:17:32 GMT
Ip***ch back on AM, though refactored as 15% loan. It seems to be showing as a 9% fee for 6 months, which implies 18%
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 15, 2014 15:10:20 GMT
I agree with Samford71.
Assetz Capital are currently providing a fee-free after market. (Well done & thank you.)
I believe this allows lenders to invest without suffering from long draw down issues, and to cheaply diversify and balance their portfolios. We stand a good chance of being able to cash in most investments without loss if we find we need the money, in a reasonable time frame (although I appreciate there's a bit of a bottleneck at the moment). We can be confident that the loans are generally good value, having been priced by experts.
This is a far better scenario than TC, where there is significant penalty for an investor like myself with 40K spread over 44 loans. Due to the fees generally only sellers with large positions or strong reasons to sell or hopes of significant profit put their loans up for sale. This makes their secondary market generally poor value.
It's true that some investors probably make some money on it, but overall it sucks value out of the platform, and I think it weakens the platform, particularly when compared to AC.
Perhaps I'm naive but one of the attractions of P2P/P2B for me was investing in people and businesses for the good of society, in exchange for a good return.
I expect there will a large influx of NISA savers shortly looking for somewhere providing good returns on reasonably safe well secured lending, and a pool of traders and flippers taking value out of the system will not help to attract them.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 14, 2014 15:07:28 GMT
Would it be possible to have an spreadsheet export of all our loans and auto-investment mandates please?
To include: Auction Title Auction Id Nominal Rate Actual Rate (e.g. default rate currently in effect) Term Type: Interest Only, Repayment, etc Original Capital lent, or purchased on AM Outstanding Capital Accrued Interest Status: (On Time, Late by x Days, Repaid etc) Bid Date or Purchase Date Drawdown Date (so we can calculate our idle time) Purchase Source: Pre-Bid, Bid, Shadow bid or Aftermarket Auto-Investment Target
This would enable lenders to analyse the idle time between bidding and interest stating at drawdown.
We could also work out our weighted average return.
Additionally we can monitor our repayments and see which loans are late.
Those of us who are handy with spreadsheets could also see our expected repayments cash-flow.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 14, 2014 8:38:52 GMT
I'm looking forward to the new platform. Any clues as to when it might appear?
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 12, 2014 16:23:03 GMT
Although the graphics on the UI are streets ahead of the competition, and generally very useful and informative, I feel that the My Money pie chart should not really include future interest. I think it should only contain details of my money, and how it is apportioned at present, and it would be better not to include future interest based on assumptions of future repayments.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 12, 2014 16:08:44 GMT
Not quite sure if I'm answering your Q, but you get no ticks or crosses when you are in 'simple' mode, but you do get them when you flip to 'Advanced' mode. I mean the page with ALL the autoinvest settings listed www.assetzcapital.co.uk/lender/my-account/auto-investPerhaps the system should validate the settings. i.e. if you've a higher target than current investments and you've unselected "Buy", or a lower target than current investments and have unselected "Sell" then it could give you a warning. Certainly not a priority though.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 8, 2014 15:26:19 GMT
I can't comment on the quality of this particular loan, but as far as I am concerned it is not such a bad thing if occasionally a loan doesn't get off the ground - it shows crowd due diligence at work.
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niceguy37
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 8, 2014 15:22:24 GMT
It's always tricky to get a good return as a small investor. At least P2P gives you more of a chance.
Without a shadow account I would guess you'll get better returns from the aftermarket. Although AC has suffered drawdown delays, at least they have a fee-free aftermarket that helps everyone adjust their portfolios to their taste without incurring charges.
The problem comes if there is a particularly attractive loan, in which case it might be scarce on the aftermarket, and then you need to absorb the drawdown delays to be confident of getting in on the action.
I found that if I topped up my account to the next £100 from time to time, then auto-invest would manage to find something to buy within a few days. This has helped me build a fairly diversified portfolio without too much dead cash.
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