ianj
Member of DD Central
Posts: 656 
Likes: 520
|
Post by ianj on Sept 30, 2015 18:52:21 GMT
I believe the ability to mark loans as 'priority investments' is vastly preferable to what is currently available and would be happy to go with this for now, but..... .....with 38 of the 78 loans I'm already invested in/trying to invest in/awaiting drawdown having (or did have until earlier today) investment orders set..... .....and with the number of loans available hopefully growing and the effort involved to manage them potentially increasing..... .....my personal view is that a global disable/enable switch for both investment and sell orders (with the ability to enable individual loans) would be the most effective and efficient way from a lenders perspective. This would cater for any circumstance I can currently envisage with speed and least user effort. P.S. naturally I have no concept of the coding effort required to achieve this, nor can I be aware of any impact on unknown system enhancements in the pipeline.  So two global disable switches, which you can then override at the loan level, so a local loan override the global override switch... This sounds like a lot of complexity and not necessarily widely wanted. I think we should all push for the API and then you can have scripts that do this sort of thing for you. A script to record all current orders then cancel them should be easy, as should reinstate all orders that don't have an order (from the recorded list). While I'm personally looking forward to the 'new toy, two switches, marked on/off, might be considered as simplicity in comparison to an API by anyone unused to coding! 
|
|
bigfoot12
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,817
Likes: 816
|
Post by bigfoot12 on Sept 30, 2015 19:00:18 GMT
During last Friday, yesterday and this morning I've experienced a noticeable increase in purchasing activity, most probably associated with the loan drawdown postponed until today. As a consequence, I have spent more time than desired attempting to maintain funds, sufficient for the pending loan, in my MLIA. I don't really see the problem. You have bought loans which you had targeted, which are now accruing interest, instead of have cash lying around waiting for a loan which may never draw.
|
|
ianj
Member of DD Central
Posts: 656
Likes: 520
|
Post by ianj on Sept 30, 2015 20:44:16 GMT
During last Friday, yesterday and this morning I've experienced a noticeable increase in purchasing activity, most probably associated with the loan drawdown postponed until today. As a consequence, I have spent more time than desired attempting to maintain funds, sufficient for the pending loan, in my MLIA. I don't really see the problem. You have bought loans which you had targeted, which are now accruing interest, instead of have cash lying around waiting for a loan which may never draw. I guess we all have varying investment goals and strategies, as we all have our own ideas on what is, or isn't, problematic. I set investment targets where I wish to:- a. achieve a predetermined investment on drawdown Particularly important in the case of a loan is likely to be oversubscribed and consequently scarce on the AM. If you miss it you may get few chances for the foreseeable future. b. purchase on drawdown but am not particularly concerned about the level of holding initially achieved Loans likely to be available on AM post drawdown. As we can never be sure of when, or in what order, loans will drawdown, I see these loans as a lower priority. c. increase holdings in current loans from interest received Very desirable under normal circumstances, but not when it impinges on a higher priority goal. Its possible to 'get a feel' for the 'normal' level and frequency of loan availability on the AM and set/amend targets as required. Approaching drawdown of a loan that's certain to be popular causes increased levels of AM sales, so where I'm used to seeing the odd £1 purchase I've been seeing £50-£100 depletions of cash earmarked for the loan going live today. In an ideal world this would been controllable with minimum keystrokes and little time expended. The 30 mins or so I spent re-establishing available cash levels, then preventing further incursions, plus regular checks to ensure nothing else had gone awry, was certainly irritating. Having subsequently discovered that drawdown on the loan in question has been delayed yet again, I feel that stronger adjectives are required to accurately convey my feelings!  I missed out on the last popular loan (the 15% legal one) because it was drawndown 2 days earlier than the published estimate. I was intent on not missing out again. Now tell me I don't have a problem! 
|
|
mikes1531
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,453
Likes: 2,320
|
Post by mikes1531 on Sept 30, 2015 21:35:12 GMT
Happy to accept ideas on this. Would a simple tick box on a buy order flagging it as a 'priority investment' be enough? With that solution the system would total up all unfulfilled priority investments across all loans and make sure that non-priority buy orders only access funds in excess of that amount. A cap to that total would probably also be useful - if there are (say) £1000 total of unfulfilled priority investments, but I judge it highly unlikely that more than a few dozen pounds will be invested at any one moment, I might want to reserve only a maximum of (say) £100 for the "priority" investments, allowing funds in excess of that (if any) to be allocated to non-priority investments. (adjust magnitude of example amounts depending on portfolio size!). The above suggestions (combined) sound like a reasonable starting point, especially if they could be implemented without a major IT effort. Once in operation, we could see whether further controls/tweaking would be appropriate and adjust as necessary. Like ianj, I spent a fair amount of time today changing my targets to make funds available for the anticipated drawdown and now, since it has been delayed yet again, I have to reverse all those changes. It is a pain! 
|
|
|
|
Post by chris on Sept 30, 2015 22:05:49 GMT
A different approach could be for lenders to be able to specify per loan how much to hold in reserve. So you could say "For this buy instruction invest up to £1000 but hold £100 of that in reserve even if other loan units available elsewhere". That would allow more granular control and would keep things within the buy instruction itself, which in turn lets me put it behind an "advanced" tab or similar.
|
|
mikes1531
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,453
Likes: 2,320
|
Post by mikes1531 on Sept 30, 2015 22:39:05 GMT
A different approach could be for lenders to be able to specify per loan how much to hold in reserve. So you could say "For this buy instruction invest up to £1000 but hold £100 of that in reserve even if other loan units available elsewhere". That would allow more granular control and would keep things within the buy instruction itself, which in turn lets me put it behind an "advanced" tab or similar. While this would provide control at the individual loan level, unless I'm misunderstanding chris's suggestion I don't think it would solve the problem of wanting to be able to keep a specific sum of money available for upcoming loans. Example: If I want to hold £1k back for a bid on a new loan expected to draw down tomorrow -- I wish! -- I don't want to have to go into all of my active buy orders -- of which there might be 30-50, nearly all of which are set at £100 or less -- and set aside £25 from each to reserve the necessary funds. And if the total of my active buy orders exceeds my total cash available -- which it certainly does because I know that most of my buy orders will sit idle until lightning strikes -- then the £25 held back from each wouldn't stop all my available cash from disappearing just as tomorrow's loan actually is drawn down. So what I really need is the ability to set a single number -- £1k in this example -- and leave all my buy orders as they are, except to make them go on hold if my total cash drops to £1k. Does that make sense?
|
|
ianj
Member of DD Central
Posts: 656
Likes: 520
|
Post by ianj on Oct 1, 2015 5:44:43 GMT
A different approach could be for lenders to be able to specify per loan how much to hold in reserve. So you could say "For this buy instruction invest up to £1000 but hold £100 of that in reserve even if other loan units available elsewhere". That would allow more granular control and would keep things within the buy instruction itself, which in turn lets me put it behind an "advanced" tab or similar. I think I agree with mikes1531's reaction, but just so that we all fully understand the concept.... .... lets say I have . 70 current loans . a constantly changing no. (currently 30) of investment orders set on current loans, ranging from very low , ie. £1.17 (to maintain an amortising loan target), to £500+ . 10 upcoming loans targeted at £1000 each How would your suggestion be implemented?
|
|
|
|
Post by chris on Oct 1, 2015 6:30:07 GMT
A different approach could be for lenders to be able to specify per loan how much to hold in reserve. So you could say "For this buy instruction invest up to £1000 but hold £100 of that in reserve even if other loan units available elsewhere". That would allow more granular control and would keep things within the buy instruction itself, which in turn lets me put it behind an "advanced" tab or similar. While this would provide control at the individual loan level, unless I'm misunderstanding chris's suggestion I don't think it would solve the problem of wanting to be able to keep a specific sum of money available for upcoming loans. Example: If I want to hold £1k back for a bid on a new loan expected to draw down tomorrow -- I wish! -- I don't want to have to go into all of my active buy orders -- of which there might be 30-50, nearly all of which are set at £100 or less -- and set aside £25 from each to reserve the necessary funds. And if the total of my active buy orders exceeds my total cash available -- which it certainly does because I know that most of my buy orders will sit idle until lightning strikes -- then the £25 held back from each wouldn't stop all my available cash from disappearing just as tomorrow's loan actually is drawn down. So what I really need is the ability to set a single number -- £1k in this example -- and leave all my buy orders as they are, except to make them go on hold if my total cash drops to £1k. Does that make sense? I'm misunderstanding. If you wanted to reserve £1k for a new loan then on the buy order for that loan my suggestion was that you enter £1k against it as the amount to reserve. So you enter the number once on the specific order you wish to reserve funds for.
|
|
|
|
Post by chris on Oct 1, 2015 6:31:59 GMT
A different approach could be for lenders to be able to specify per loan how much to hold in reserve. So you could say "For this buy instruction invest up to £1000 but hold £100 of that in reserve even if other loan units available elsewhere". That would allow more granular control and would keep things within the buy instruction itself, which in turn lets me put it behind an "advanced" tab or similar. I think I agree with mikes1531's reaction, but just so that we all fully understand the concept.... .... lets say I have . 70 current loans . a constantly changing no. (currently 30) of investment orders set on current loans, ranging from very low , ie. £1.17 (to maintain an amortising loan target), to £500+ . 10 upcoming loans targeted at £1000 each How would your suggestion be implemented? On each of the upcoming loans for which you want to reserve funds you would enter the amount you want to reserve against the buy order for those loans. So if you wanted to hold back £10k to give £1k in each of those upcoming loans, you'd enter £1k against each of those buy orders.
|
|
ianj
Member of DD Central
Posts: 656
Likes: 520
|
Post by ianj on Oct 1, 2015 7:37:04 GMT
On each of the upcoming loans for which you want to reserve funds you would enter the amount you want to reserve against the buy order for those loans. So if you wanted to hold back £10k to give £1k in each of those upcoming loans, you'd enter £1k against each of those buy orders. Ok, I can live with that. Much simpler than I thought you might be suggesting. All I need now is the £10k, the QAA to accept that sum instantly (matching returns available via TSB and Lloyds), and some loans to drawdown. If required, I'm usually able to believe think of as many as six impossible things before breakfast! 
|
|
mikeb
Posts: 1,072
Likes: 472
|
Post by mikeb on Oct 1, 2015 17:49:39 GMT
Suggestion for improvement 1) :- chris Could the following two views be made to show the SAME values for holdings, and for those holdings to add up to "my total holding" at some point :- Example :- www.assetzcapital.co.uk/loans/invested-in?view=listHolding £79.99 (£79.9999999999999999999998 in hover-over, rounding failure) www.assetzcapital.co.uk/loans/invested-in?view=tableHolding £80.00 (£80 in hover) Downloaded CSV - holding £80. I see no sense in the truncation/rounding on the list view, fiven that it's correct on the table view. Suggestion for improvement 2) :- Can the pie-chart on the summary page include amounts invested in the QAA -- it still shows 0% in QAA despite the fact I have cash in the QAA. This has been out of whack since the QAA launched. |
|
mikes1531
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,453
Likes: 2,320
|
Post by mikes1531 on Oct 1, 2015 17:59:47 GMT
I'm misunderstanding. If you wanted to reserve £1k for a new loan then on the buy order for that loan my suggestion was that you enter £1k against it as the amount to reserve. So you enter the number once on the specific order you wish to reserve funds for. : I misunderstood. I thought you were suggesting that the setting was to be made on buy instructions for other loans, to say "but don't use all of my available funds". What I now understand is better, but... On each of the upcoming loans for which you want to reserve funds you would enter the amount you want to reserve against the buy order for those loans. So if you wanted to hold back £10k to give £1k in each of those upcoming loans, you'd enter £1k against each of those buy orders. If I do that for ten upcoming loans I'm going to idle £10k of my AC investment, even though most of those loans won't become available for investment for a while. So I'd have to delay putting in any buy orders like that until very close to drawdown, which means having to watch the upcoming loans list very carefully in order to avoid setting aside funds much too far in advance. I think I'd still prefer a control that would allow me to set aside something like £3k that would allow a stream -- steady or unsteady -- of upcoming loans to be funded as and when they went live without me having to watch the upcoming loans list like a hawk. All I'd have to worry about in that case would be more than three loans going live in a very short time -- we should be so lucky! But that's JMHO, and others may prefer different options and use their accounts in different ways.
|
|
|
|
Post by chris on Oct 1, 2015 18:17:53 GMT
I'm misunderstanding. If you wanted to reserve £1k for a new loan then on the buy order for that loan my suggestion was that you enter £1k against it as the amount to reserve. So you enter the number once on the specific order you wish to reserve funds for. : I misunderstood. I thought you were suggesting that the setting was to be made on buy instructions for other loans, to say "but don't use all of my available funds". What I now understand is better, but... On each of the upcoming loans for which you want to reserve funds you would enter the amount you want to reserve against the buy order for those loans. So if you wanted to hold back £10k to give £1k in each of those upcoming loans, you'd enter £1k against each of those buy orders. If I do that for ten upcoming loans I'm going to idle £10k of my AC investment, even though most of those loans won't become available for investment for a while. So I'd have to delay putting in any buy orders like that until very close to drawdown, which means having to watch the upcoming loans list very carefully in order to avoid setting aside funds much too far in advance. I think I'd still prefer a control that would allow me to set aside something like £3k that would allow a stream -- steady or unsteady -- of upcoming loans to be funded as and when they went live without me having to watch the upcoming loans list like a hawk. All I'd have to worry about in that case would be more than three loans going live in a very short time -- we should be so lucky! But that's JMHO, and others may prefer different options and use their accounts in different ways. Okay, see where you're coming from. Will give it some more thought.
|
|
SteveT
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,875
Likes: 7,924
|
Post by SteveT on Oct 1, 2015 18:26:17 GMT
I agree it would be useful to be able to "reserve" a sum from MLIA available cash that would be called on first when a new loan draws down (and would not be drawn upon to fund purchases of existing loans).
|
|
oldgrumpy
Member of DD Central
Posts: 5,087
Likes: 3,233
|
Post by oldgrumpy on Nov 25, 2015 10:28:33 GMT
chrisChris, is there any logic in the order in which MLIA loans are listed when we log on? Currently, every time, from the top down sequence is 173,104, 45, 109, 108, 68 ..... etc Every time I have to click the head of the loan numbers to put them in numerical order, latest at the top. Can the page be made to remember that setting, or by default start off in that way? Attachments:
|
|
