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Post by ranjeb on Jul 1, 2014 11:44:51 GMT
This thread may explain why I rarely see anything worth going for on secondary market.
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james
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Post by james on Jul 1, 2014 12:51:48 GMT
is, it's hard to believe that managing only a few thousand loan parts is unduly time-consuming unless the managing isn't mainly waiting for loans to pay interest. Still, I don't have an account and maybe I should believe your claim that FC has an extremely inefficient user interface.
Bots discourage me from adding liquidity to markets where they are operating because I tend not to bother visiting. I know that the bots will have taken anything with even marginal good value and will be leaving me only the dregs. No surprise that bots reduce liquidity by discouraging the humans, though. I assume it's part of the cause of the liquidity lack that you mention, discouraging most FC participants from bothering with that part of the market.
If P&L and statistical analysis are hard I wonder what data FC provides. I assume they at least provide things like lists of loans with details of how they have performed, so it's possible to do analysis.
I simply don't believe that "any volume investor will follow this route". Most volume investors will not have bot writing skills so will be unable to do so unless they breach FC's terms and conditions. Better to deal with the underlying issues so that all potential high value lenders can participate instead of only the bot programmers.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 1, 2014 13:25:33 GMT
Somewhat similar to PikeStaff, I want to know which platforms facilitate with APIs or otherwise tolerate bots so I can avoid those platforms. Thanks for discussing this here. It's interesting that in a previous discussion on the FC site it was observed by someone appearing to be a FC employee "Good points made. I'm persuaded of the need for action by FC. Thank you ... for bringing it to our attention." I'm not sure the poster you reference is actually an FC employee (or ever was). If so, they ought fess up! FC basically get 0.25% from all part sales, so if bots buy, and then resell, they get 0.25% twice instead of once, so they are not rushing to fix it. I have several times suggested various methods for moderating bot action at primary auctions (notably back when C-s were selling out in 5 minutes), to no avail (not even a sensible response, apart from 'well flippers take all sorts of other risks' (yeah, like not being able to shift the parts at par?)). Limiting activity rate from a particular IP address is not ideal (some households have one IP address shared among many users, ditto 'the cloud' etc) .. limiting activity rate from a particular user (with warnings and sanctions for multiple account abuse) would work OK, but FC are apparently not interested. Yep, it's a zero sum game (on the secondary market) with the house getting 0.25% every time. On the primary market, what lenders gain, borrowers lose, and the main annoyance I have with bots there are the ill mannered ones which try to hog 90% of an auction, or bid at DoS type speeds at auction closes (if FC allowed splitting of loan parts after the auction, or multi-bids, that problem would be much reduced). I see FC are murmuring about a revised autobid system (maybe exhibiting less artificial stupidity .. or am I dreaming?) over in the other place .. they've had my (free!) inputs for more than a year now (and lots of others too), so we'll see what happens. Anyway, I think this thread was initiated by some user querying the existence of secondary market buy-bots, which I guess is now resolved. They really are out there.
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is
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Post by is on Jul 1, 2014 13:28:16 GMT
is, it's hard to believe that managing only a few thousand loan parts is unduly time-consuming unless the managing isn't mainly waiting for loans to pay interest. Still, I don't have an account and maybe I should believe your claim that FC has an extremely inefficient user interface. Bots discourage me from adding liquidity to markets where they are operating because I tend not to bother visiting. I know that the bots will have taken anything with even marginal good value and will be leaving me only the dregs. No surprise that bots reduce liquidity by discouraging the humans, though. I assume it's part of the cause of the liquidity lack that you mention, discouraging most FC participants from bothering with that part of the market. If P&L and statistical analysis are hard I wonder what data FC provides. I assume they at least provide things like lists of loans with details of how they have performed, so it's possible to do analysis. I simply don't believe that "any volume investor will follow this route". Most volume investors will not have bot writing skills so will be unable to do so unless they breach FC's terms and conditions. Better to deal with the underlying issues so that all potential high value lenders can participate instead of only the bot programmers. Managing any credit book involves a lot more than waiting for loans to pay interest (or default  ). Additional market participants are always welcome, bots or not - and despite currently trading manually I have used both primary and secondary market without problems, but certainly would like to automate a lot of the tasks. Currently putting 100 loan parts for sale or buying 100 involves hundreds of clicks, unnecessary with proper UI. Many people I know are investing manually but will follow once API is available. With some enhancements FC platform could become a decent marketplace - especially if you are able to split/reconstitute loan parts easily (that would eliminate the need for the Whole Loans market altogether - at the moment when I want to take an entire loan it's a lot of clicks, and you rarely get all you want).
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 1, 2014 13:29:40 GMT
I simply don't believe that "any volume investor will follow this route". Most volume investors will not have bot writing skills so will be unable to do so unless they breach FC's terms and conditions. Better to deal with the underlying issues so that all potential high value lenders can participate instead of only the bot programmers. Anyone with a 6 or 7 figure sum to invest can BUY bot writing skills (and actually it isn't that hard as a DIY project; in the other place I have more than once pointed to the various pre-fab bot kits which are out there, many of them free).
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is
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Post by is on Jul 1, 2014 13:44:16 GMT
FC basically get 0.25% from all part sales, so if bots buy, and then resell, they get 0.25% twice instead of once, so they are not rushing to fix it. I have several times suggested various methods for moderating bot action at primary auctions (notably back when C-s were selling out in 5 minutes), to no avail (not even a sensible response, apart from 'well flippers take all sorts of other risks' (yeah, like not being able to shift the parts at par?)). Flippers, or market-makers, take on extended liquidity and credit exposure, and help determine market price as well as providing liquidity. I underwrite on Assetz where rewards for this are explicit (and transaction costs zero). FC takes a different approach - you can see property loan cashback as a form of underwriting fee.
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james
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Post by james on Jul 1, 2014 14:56:33 GMT
I'm not sure the poster you reference is actually an FC employee (or ever was). I agree. I no longer think that they are an FC employee and have struck through that portion of my previous post.
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Post by goldservice on Jul 1, 2014 15:07:58 GMT
GSV: ' ... the main annoyance I have with bots there are the ill mannered ones which try to hog 90% of an auction, or bid at DoS type speeds at auction closes.'
What is a DoS type speed, please (just so that others can configure their bots better)?
Routers offer so many traffic shaping options nowadays that FC could restrain bots very easily right now if they wished to.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 1, 2014 15:21:15 GMT
GSV: ' ... the main annoyance I have with bots there are the ill mannered ones which try to hog 90% of an auction, or bid at DoS type speeds at auction closes.' What is a DoS type speed, please (just so that others can configure their bots better)? Routers offer so many traffic shaping options nowadays that FC could restrain bots very easily right now if they wished to. DoS type speed depends on how screwed up the FC servers are that day, so there is no obvious answer, as you knew. I already asked FC a similar question. If I had to guess I'd say multiple (3 or more) bids per second, continued for minutes at a time, but obviously it depends how many bots are doing that at any time. Yes, there are several available solutions for FC, none of which they seem to have implemented (yet) .. unless the slow website, time outs, DNS error, and 500/502 errors are intentional of course. 8>.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 15, 2014 21:19:19 GMT
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jm72
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Post by jm72 on Jul 16, 2014 6:09:51 GMT
I don't know what you've unleashed here - but the loan part page now comes up with a server error! Maybe everyone is it out at the same time 
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chrisf
Member of DD Central
Posts: 224
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Post by chrisf on Jul 16, 2014 7:52:31 GMT
The link works for me but the loan parts don't appear in chronological order, but are still sorted by rate, highest first. Or do I need to check/uncheck some boxes? Update: The clickable link over at the other place does work. Deffo most recent first.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 16, 2014 15:39:31 GMT
Me bad, there should be an 'r' on the end of both the 'paginator' words. Now fixed in original post (but still misquoted thereafter, obviously).
clicking the link here (even after I fixed the typo) doesn't seem to work .. copy and paste should.
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maxmarengo
Member of DD Central
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Post by maxmarengo on Jul 17, 2014 7:05:52 GMT
Good old(?) SL75! Shame he hasn't made it over to the Independent Forum - he is a great contibutor.
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joe91
Member of DD Central
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Post by joe91 on Jun 1, 2017 10:43:06 GMT
in the other place I have more than once pointed to the various pre-fab bot kits which are out there, Hi, I appreciate it may be difficult within the rules of this site, but is there some way someone can direct me to this mysterious 'other place' and / or the pre-fab bot kits mentioned? I'm a programmer, so if anyone could otherwise advise what I need to learn to best scrape / automate websites, I'd be interested. Not particularly for P2P, just generally interested in learning this. Thanks
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). Additional market participants are always welcome, bots or not - and despite currently trading manually I have used both primary and secondary market without problems, but certainly would like to automate a lot of the tasks. Currently putting 100 loan parts for sale or buying 100 involves hundreds of clicks, unnecessary with proper UI.
