sl75
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Post by sl75 on Jan 15, 2015 13:31:17 GMT
PS. Right now, more than an hour after the issue first appeared, my NLWT holding still is £3.21 above my target. There appear to be no other NLWT units for sale, and my £3.21 part is going nowhere. Is it even for sale? Does anyone else see it as available? No North L*thian for sale on my screen. Nor me... However, I do have holdings in excess of my target (within the MLIA) for all of #77 (Cu WT, £1.21 excess), #106 (Sw WT, £20 excess), #121 (Co WT, £3.58 excess), none of which appear to have any units available in the aftermarket and also an excess of #127 (Fa WT, £12.22 excess) which has existed similarly long, but could be put down to "bad luck" as other units are available in the aftermarket. All of them show the "my investment target" switch in the "enabled" position when I check. Those excess holdings have all existed for quite some time, as I last reviewed / reduced the target a few weeks ago as I recall. For all but #106, I've either achieved a sale of at least part of the £20 reduction in target, or hadn't reached the former target. I've lost track of which applies in each case, but could probably research it if I cared about the history. In addition to the above, my GEIA should be attempting to sell at least some of these, as I've got a withdrawal target of about 90% of its present value... but has sold nothing at all only £0.02 of Mo WT since I set it this way yesterday.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 15, 2015 15:19:29 GMT
No North L*thian for sale on my screen. Nor me... However, I do have holdings in excess of my target (within the MLIA) for all of #77 (Cu WT, £1.21 excess), #106 (Sw WT, £20 excess), #121 (Co WT, £3.58 excess), none of which appear to have any units available in the aftermarket... All of them show the "my investment target" switch in the "enabled" position when I check. We seem to have a significant body of evidence showing that in some cases where a lender's holding exceeds their target the AutoInvest feature is failing to offer the excess holding for sale in the aftermarket. So it looks like there's a definite bug that chris's team needs to investigate and patch. Is it just a coincidence that all of the affected loans are WTs? Does anyone have the same problem with a non-WT loan?
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sl75
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Post by sl75 on Jan 15, 2015 15:30:53 GMT
We seem to have a significant body of evidence showing that in some cases where a lender's holding exceeds their target the AutoInvest feature is failing to offer the excess holding for sale in the aftermarket. So it looks like there's a definite bug that chris's team needs to investigate and patch. Is it just a coincidence that all of the affected loans are WTs? Does anyone have the same problem with a non-WT loan? I only have the problem with WT loans. [Edit: ... and to clarify, despite the subject of the thread, this entire post is about manipulations within the MLIA... I have GEIA holdings too, but these were completely unaffected by any of the following] Further to my earlier comment: - For #106 (Sw WT, £20 excess), I tried increasing my target to a little more than my holding, waiting a couple of minutes, and then reducing it back to its original level (thinking maybe it would trigger something). It did not. - For #125 (Ca WT), I had holding = target. I tried reducing my target by a penny. It resulted in an immediate sale. I then put my target back to "normal". - For #77 (Cu WT, £1.21 excess), I reduced my target to £1.21 below my current holding, so that my target was £2.42 below my then current holding, and £1.21 below the target I really meant. This resulted in an immediate sale of £1.21. I then set my target back to its intended level. It'll be interesting to see whether, over the course of the next few days, it (incorrectly) purchases more to take my holding above my target. I wonder if the back-end systems are having trouble coping with users who have targeted "green" loans in the MLIA and who also have a holding in GEIA, or if it's a general problem with those loans? Now to try the same trick I tried with #77 on the others with no units available on the aftermarket... it seemed to work - no idea why... Edit: For #121 (Co WT, £3.58 excess) this worked exactly as for #77 - reduce by £3.58, trigger immediate sales of £3.58, then restore target to correct level. For #106 (Sw WT, £20 excess), I reduced my target by £20 (thus creating a £40 excess), and this resulted in sales totalling only £12.11 (reducing the excess to £27.89 based on the then-current target, which itself was £20 below my true intended target). I reduced my target by a further £7.89 (thus creating an excess of £35.78), which resulted in sales of a further £7.89 of loan units, reducing my excess to the same £27.89 based on the then-current target, which at that point was £27.89 below my true intended target). I then restored the target to its correct level. All of these, #77, #106 and #121 now have holding = target... but will they stay that way? I'll let the system find other loan units to re-invest the released funds into before I experiment further (with #127 which has a £12.22 excess, but where sales would not be "immediate" as other loan units are visible), as maybe the fault will have been identified and fixed, or maybe the other loan units will sell out allowing the same method to be used.
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bigfoot12
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Post by bigfoot12 on Jan 15, 2015 17:32:18 GMT
I only have the problem with WT loans. [Edit: ... and to clarify, despite the subject of the thread, this entire post is about manipulations within the MLIA... I have GEIA holdings too, but these were completely unaffected by any of the following] As mikes1531 said it does seem to be a coincidence that people are reporting problems with WT loans only. sl75 does your holding in the GEIA of these problem loans look significant. For example is loan #77 in your GEIA exactly £1.21, or £1.21 short of 20% of your total?
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sl75
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Post by sl75 on Jan 15, 2015 17:54:11 GMT
sl75 does your holding in the GEIA of these problem loans look significant. For example is loan #77 in your GEIA exactly £1.21, or £1.21 short of 20% of your total? Hmmm... let me check AC's convenient report of my GEIA holdings a detailed analysis of the statement entries for all time since the GEIA launched. ... it would seem so. For #77 I've had 3 purchases in my GEIA, of £1, £0.20 and £0.01. For #121 my GEIA has had 4 purchases, totaling £3.58 For #106 my 11 GEIA purchases add up to £27.89. However, this issue does not appear to apply in all cases, as I also have a substantial holding in #125 within my GEIA, but reducing my MLIA target on that loan by a single penny resulted in a sale... if it had behaved as the others I would have expected no effect from reducing the target by as much as £30. I wonder if a similar issue the other way round is some contributory factor towards the bug causing GEIA sales not to occur - perhaps the GEIA also gets confused when investors also hold WT loans in their MLIA?
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bigfoot12
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Post by bigfoot12 on Jan 15, 2015 21:06:43 GMT
it would seem so. For #77 I've had 3 purchases in my GEIA, of £1, £0.20 and £0.01. For #121 my GEIA has had 4 purchases, totaling £3.58 For #106 my 11 GEIA purchases add up to £27.89. However, this issue does not appear to apply in all cases, as I also have a substantial holding in #125 within my GEIA, but reducing my MLIA target on that loan by a single penny resulted in a sale... if it had behaved as the others I would have expected no effect from reducing the target by as much as £30. I wonder if a similar issue the other way round is some contributory factor towards the bug causing GEIA sales not to occur - perhaps the GEIA also gets confused when investors also hold WT loans in their MLIA? Strange it doesn't apply in all cases. It might apply the other way round. It certainly needs looking at chris, when your team gets a chance. I don't have a GEIA so I don't feel it is for me to email to the bug list and I don't know sl75 real name so I can't give it as an example.
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dave
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Post by dave on Jan 15, 2015 21:47:19 GMT
I have had about 650 quid of GEIA for sale since early December, with zero sales  two loans GEIA only, rest are MLIA[1]/GEIA[3] - take loan numbers below with a pinch of salt $ perl assetz-csv.pl --quiet --post --num --grep Wind --forum --life --net
Dates of CSV entries were from 2014-01-07 to 2015-01-07.
Report for life: lifetime
A************ W*** T****** #93 [3] Inte 0.81 Net -105.80
B****** W*** T****** #83 [1] Inte 3.57 Net 86.09
B****** W*** T****** #83 [3] Inte 0.11 Net -24.31
B****** W*** T****** [1] Inte 1.66 Net -100.00
C************** W*** T****** L*** #125 [1] Inte 3.03 Net -250.00
C************** W*** T****** L*** #125 [3] Inte 0.52 Net -125.52
C******* W*** T****** L*** #121 [3] Inte 0.29 Net -33.62
C****** W*** T****** #77 [1] Inte 3.78 Net 100.00
C****** W*** T****** #77 [3] Inte 0.18 Net -20.74
C****** W*** T****** [1] Inte 1.66 Net -100.00
F******* W*** T****** L*** #127 [1] Inte 0.10 Net -45.00
F******* W*** T****** L*** #127 [3] Inte 0.67 Net -59.35
M******* W*** T****** #112 [1] Inte 4.70 Net -342.00
M******* W*** T****** #112 [3] Inte 0.73 Net -131.95
M******* W*** T****** #160 [1] Net -58.00
N**** L****** W*** T****** #122 [1] Net -300.00
N**** L****** W*** T****** #90 [1] Inte 11.41 Net 211.46
N**** L****** W*** T****** #90 [3] Inte 0.41 Net -88.54
N**** L****** W*** T****** [1] Inte 1.63
S****** W*** T****** #106 [3] Inte 0.62 Net -92.73
I purchased some FWT on MLIA as a test and it bought someone elses, not the ones I had for sale. still putting money into AC from TC  best regards Dave
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tonyr
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Post by tonyr on Jan 16, 2015 14:43:03 GMT
I may well be missing something as I don't intend it invest in the GEIA but isn't there a fundamental problem with the 20% rule in that if only five assets are available then it'll invest 20% each but then it locks up in that it can't sell anyone as the others would then breach the 20%. So the only way to sell is if the system didn't sell loan by loan but looked globally as to whether all five loans could be sold. I'm sure this has been thought about, and really it's only curiosity on my part as I like working out how these things work.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Jan 16, 2015 14:49:50 GMT
I may well be missing something as I don't intend it invest in the GEIA but isn't there a fundamental problem with the 20% rule in that if only five assets are available then it'll invest 20% each but then it locks up in that it can't sell anyone as the others would then breach the 20%. So the only way to sell is if the system didn't sell loan by loan but looked globally as to whether all five loans could be sold. I'm sure this has been thought about, and really it's only curiosity on my part as I like working out how these things work. I'm also not in the GEIA but following those that post about it with interest. Assuming your case as 5 loans at 20% each. Then it would be necessary to sell an equal part of each of those 5 loans at exactly an identical time otherwise there would be a 20% breach somewhere. So in effect it is virtually impossible IMO unless a perfect world scenario existed at that point in time.
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sl75
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Post by sl75 on Jan 16, 2015 18:04:48 GMT
I'm also not in the GEIA but following those that post about it with interest. Assuming your case as 5 loans at 20% each. Then it would be necessary to sell an equal part of each of those 5 loans at exactly an identical time otherwise there would be a 20% breach somewhere. So in effect it is virtually impossible IMO unless a perfect world scenario existed at that point in time. I don't see the 20% as an absolute guarantee at all times, particularly when reducing your balance. If someone were to invest £100 in the GEIA right now, it "should" purchase £20 of each of the 3 loans with units available for immediate investment, and then leave the other £40 available for purchasing any units of other loans that become available. If that investor were to immediately ask to withdraw the £40, their GEIA would at that moment have 33.3% exposure per loan (£20 of each loan, and £60 total). It should then set a target to reduce that to 20% (i.e. £12 per loan), but this won't actually succeed until buyers are found for the excess holdings. The same principle should apply to all withdrawals - when a withdrawal target is set, the target for each "green" loan would become the relevant fraction of the post-withdrawal portfolio, and it should be trying to sell all loans whose present holding would be higher than the per-loan target that should be present in the post-withdrawal portfolio. In essence, it should be working in a similar manner to the MLIA, except that the targets for all eligible loans are the same, and automatically calculated, rather than being different and set by the user. Suppose I have a portfolio consisting of £20 each of 3 loans, £10 each of 2 more, and £5 each of 4 more (for £100 total). If I ask to withdraw £30, the system should consider which loans the resulting £70 portfolio should keep - it should keep all the loans with £10 and £5 exposure (£40 total), and £10 of each of the other 3 loans, so to achieve the £30 withdrawal, a £10 target per loan should be set, thereby selling £10 of each of the 3 loans (with purchases blocked until the withdrawal target is met). Should any repayments be received, it can re-evaluate the £10 target (perhaps becoming £10.0X due to the interest), so that it no longer needs to sell as much, and/or when the withdrawal target has been met, it can use the excess to purchase a little more of any of the 5 loans which at that time have a £10 holding, or indeed to purchase any units that may become available of the 4 loans which have a £5 holding. If instead, I'd asked to withdraw (say) £50, the system should then set a £6 target per loan. It would thus be seeking to sell £14 each of the 3 loans with £20 exposure, and £4 each of the 2 loans with £10 exposure, resulting in a final portfolio with £6 each of 5 loans and £5 each of 4 loans. Once this has completed, as repayments were received, the £6 target would initially try to re-invest the repayments in the loans with only £5 exposure. Should that not be possible, the target would be increased to allow purchasing of additional units of the loans with £6 exposure (but under no circumstances could the target increase beyond £10). The methods and algorithms for the GEIA as-specified don't seem all that complicated, but I've no idea what AC's systems currently implement!
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 16, 2015 21:34:07 GMT
I'm also not in the GEIA but following those that post about it with interest. Assuming your case as 5 loans at 20% each. Then it would be necessary to sell an equal part of each of those 5 loans at exactly an identical time otherwise there would be a 20% breach somewhere. So in effect it is virtually impossible IMO unless a perfect world scenario existed at that point in time. I don't see the 20% as an absolute guarantee at all times, particularly when reducing your balance. If someone were to invest £100 in the GEIA right now, it "should" purchase £20 of each of the 3 loans with units available for immediate investment, and then leave the other £40 available for purchasing any units of other loans that become available. It may be different now, but 20% certainly wasn't a firm limit in the early days of the GEIA. In the beginning, immediately following a deposit 20% was put into one loan and smaller amounts were put into other loans until some of all the available loans -- I think there were about six at that time -- had been bought. The algorithm then went back to the top of the list of loans and bought a bit more of each until it nearly was out of available funds. The result was that there was more than 20% of the first loan on the list in the GEIA portfolio. The algorithm has been changed since then, so this may no longer be a problem. But if there were to be only three loans available at the time a new GEIA investment is made, surely the investor would rather not have 40% of their funds left sitting idle until another loan becomes available. I expect they'd rather see all of their money invested and earning even if the 20% goal is exceeded -- especially as there is a provision fund -- and expect that their exposure would be rebalanced as soon as other investment opportunities became available. Suppose I have a portfolio consisting of £20 each of 3 loans, £10 each of 2 more, and £5 each of 4 more (for £100 total). If I ask to withdraw £30, the system should consider which loans the resulting £70 portfolio should keep - it should keep all the loans with £10 and £5 exposure (£40 total), and £10 of each of the other 3 loans, so to achieve the £30 withdrawal, a £10 target per loan should be set, thereby selling £10 of each of the 3 loans (with purchases blocked until the withdrawal target is met). I can understand the logic of this, and I'd support this algorithm if all the loans were equally saleable. Inasmuch as they're not, however, the investor hoping to make a withdrawal could find that the loans they are holding £20 each of -- and which the algorithm is trying to sell as per sl75's suggestion -- happen to have lots of units for sale on the Aftermarket so that selling them and raising the cash for the withdrawal takes forever. Surely in that case the investor would prefer the algorithm to choose to sell those loans with no units for sale on the Aftermarket so that selling them and raising the cash for the withdrawal would happen very quickly. Perhaps the best approach in this situation would be to give the investor a choice as to whether the algorithm should put priority on diversification or on speed of sale when sales are necessary to achieve withdrawals. The investor could then start by choosing the diversification option and seeing what happened. If the sales were slower than they desired they then could change the priority. Again, however, diversification should be less of a concern with a provision fund, so perhaps the GEIA should simply check to see which holdings could be sold most easily, sell those to satisfy the withdrawal request, and then try to rebalance the holdings as soon as possible thereafter. This latter approach probably is more in keeping with the target audience for the GEIA, who probably would prefer to have a set-it-and-forget-it situation.
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sl75
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Post by sl75 on Jan 16, 2015 23:03:30 GMT
Perhaps the best approach in this situation would be to give the investor a choice as to whether the algorithm should put priority on diversification or on speed of sale when sales are necessary to achieve withdrawals. In effect the algorithm given would have that option - you'd get speed of sale at expense of diversification by setting a larger withdrawal amount than you want (and if you overshoot just put it back). Even after increasing the investment, the system with such an algorithm may still be trying to reduce exposure to an overexposed loan...
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gt94sss2
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Post by gt94sss2 on Jan 17, 2015 4:25:03 GMT
It looks like the investment algorithm has been improved, to now buy up 20% of the investment, and then remaining balance is used up 50% of remaining balance at a time on each loan in turn, at a guess until the balance would be less than £1. That's certainly better the original algorithm. Well after posting my first 10 transactions on my account which took place on the first day (14 Jan) - I am now upto 1240 transactions within 3 days - and my uninvested amount keeps changing up/down- currently £1.66 but it has been higher - I've seen £5 (5% uninvested) I believe. Most oddly, I have what 100's of transactions where the system is buying a loan and then selling the same amount from the same loan immediately... A sample: I'd actually like to invest more in the account/platform but this behaviour doesn't exactly fill one with confidence. On the positive side, I seem to have picked up 1p interest somewhere - as someone else has said AC need to display a summary table showing our total holdings in each GEIA account - and for the statement summaries an option to only display certain types of transaction would also be very useful
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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 Jan 17, 2015 6:15:14 GMT
I have never used the GEIA, but often buy and sell WT's via the MLIA. At 20:10 on 16th Jan I bought £400 of F******* WT #127. The system showed that there was over £400 available on the Aftermarket, so I expected it to happen quickly. The system bought 51 shrapnel-sized chunks ranging from 0.09p to £27.93 which is not surprising these days. However, it was surprising that the system took 6 minutes to buy £400 worth.
It was a gradual process buying 9 chunks at 20:10,
8 chunks at 20:11
6 chunks at 20:12
9 chunks at 20:13
6 chunks at 20:14
11 chunks at 20:15
and 2 chunks at 20:16
This is a few minutes after the buying and selling shown in gt94sss2 post above. Did anyone else see strange happenings around the same time?
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 17, 2015 12:35:44 GMT
Surely this discussion is academic. Barring aliens landing on earth and cat sleeping with dogs, the account is going to return 7%. The GEIA returns 7% only on the amount invested. If the investing algorithm leaves a portion of an investor's funds idle, they will not earn the advertised rate. Also, if an investor wants to know what's happening in their GEIA they have to examine their statement. If the algorithm is generating hundreds of unnecessary transactions -- gt94sss2 reported their GEIA has had "1240 transactions within 3 days" -- then the statement becomes rather difficult, if not impossible, to review especially as the statements are displayed 50 lines at a time. So after just three days, gt94sss2's GEIA statement is spread over 25 pages! Something clearly is not working correctly. And it isn't just the GEIA that is affected. As I reported earlier in this thread and elsewhere, my entire holding of Loan #121 was sold earlier this week without any instructions from me, leaving me with a target and no investment.
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