Crazy mathematics on annualised return figure

Yes mine jumped, soared (to a highly unlikely 14.5)  and returned to previous jump. I assume cashback is involved somewhere. I remain completely mystified by the FC calculation.

I'd hazard a guess it would be possible if you could somehow regenerate the amounts and dates that FC's function used (some of which may well differ to what you get by using amounts and dates from the FC-supplied statement.

In particular, even before we consider errors that get magically corrected with no trace on the statement, FC's function presumably knows the difference between "bid-but-not-confirmed" and "confirmed bid moved to date of drawdown", both of which look identical on the statement.

I referred my partner to FC (that's a test of any relationship) and when her £50 bonus was paid, her annualised return jumped to 43%.

I was very pleased to go into the 10% bracket in the last few months. It takes a few hundred pounds of cash back to shift it up 0.1%. And then there was a loss on 5702. If fasty has a mature account and not predominantly flipping then 10.5% is worth getting a little bit emotional about.

'Mature' has a detrimental effect, given the way recent rates have risen, although they are falling back a bit now. Recent high rates, cash back, etc should make it not too hard to get over 10%, even without flipping. As someone has been complaining about, in t'other place, that does make it hard to shift last year's parts without a big discount though, and it gets harder whenever FC jack up the MBRs.

Well, mainly the cashback and the fact that they can be sold, albeit slowly, at par on the SM. Subject to available funds I buy into most of them up to an amount I would be prepared (although not particularly happy) to hold to term just in case the SM dries up entirely. I also think that when these loans start repaying significant amounts (which, barring too many hiccups will be in around 9 months) there will be a ready supply of funds ready to unbung the SM, and FC will probably end the cashback offer so the supply of heavily discounted parts will dry up. So I expect not to be holding too many of them at term, but I won't be overly worried if I am.

Having said that, I would still be happy with them even without the cashback, although without the flipping opportunity I'd only be buying small amounts to hold. Unlike the 12% loans on SS and AC, these aren't bridging loans, they are generally development loans made to experienced developers who are using the funds for work on the property that the loan is secured on. The borrower will have a significant equity stake in the development and has an interest in selling or refinancing as quickly as possible to release profits and funds for the next project. From what I've seen, repayment of the BLs seems to depend on a lot of third parties honouring agreements, including parties who aren't unduly bothered about the rate of progress, or even have a motive to delay proceedings (I don't follow the BL threads closely since I'm not in many, but I think I'm right in one case a BL has turned out to be secured on a property that the borrower is living in - I can't see an amicable end to that one). As I see it, BLs are where borrowers go when things are already turning bad; I can't see anyone being willing to pay the eye watering interest unless there's a certain air of desperation, and of course the borrower doesn't want to pay high rates for long, so is likely to make optimistic estimates of timescales for selling, refinancing or whatever.

So that's about it, in summary I think FC's loans and SS/AC BLs are very different products, and FC's fit my risk profile a bit better than the BLs.

I'm with MarkR on this - the short term, 2% cashback, ones are OK if you don't get over exposed (bearing in mind some come in 2 or more tranches), and don't expect to liquidate any time soon (over the last 3 months the ones I have sold have taken > 2 months average, and there is another as many again, or more, which have yet to sell, so I guess the half-life is around the 3 month mark.) The 3-5 year ones at 7 or 7.5% are definitely not for me, whatever the cash back (OK .. maybe if it was >>3%!).