Search Results for: lendingclub

I invested $10,000 into person-to-person loans in November 2012, split evenly between LendingClub and Prosper. It’s been a little over 9 months since then, so I wanted to give a detailed update in addition to my brief monthly updates. The primary goal of this portfolio is to earn a target return of 8-10% net of defaults, but I also wanted to see if there were significant differences between the two competitors Prosper and LendingClub.

I’m also considering liquidating both portfolios after 12 months have passed. I’m getting a little bored with the experiment, and having to sell the loans would also allow me to compare the ease of selling either company’s loans on the secondary market.

Portfolio Credit Quality Comparison

I wanted to keep these portfolios comparable in terms of risk level, while still trying to maximize overall return net of defaults. Peter Renton of LendAcademy made this helpful chart comparing estimated defaults rates with their respective credit grades. Since each company has their own proprietary credit grading formula, they don’t match up perfectly.

Here’s my portfolio breakdown:

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Here’s the April 2013 update for my peer-to-peer lending portfolio, the last of three “real money” portfolios being tracked monthly as part of my Beat the Market Experiment. See also the $10,000 Benchmark and $10,000 Speculative portfolio updates.

For this one, I started with $10,000 split evenly between Prosper Lending and Lending Club, and went to work lending other people money and earning interest with an 8% target net return. So it’s also a race-within-a-race to see which option offers the best returns.

$5,000 LendingClub Loan Portfolio. Below is a screenshot of my LendingClub account as of 4/1/13. I’ve had loans at LC before, but sold them all on the secondary market and started fresh for this tracking experiment. Here are screenshots of my total balance and my portfolio details. I would say my overall risk level is moderate-conservative with mostly A and B rated loans (top two grades).

(click to enlarge)

The portfolio is now 5 months old, with 208 currently active loans, 9 loans that were paid off early, and 5 in funding. Two of the active loans are currently between 31-120 days late, which according to LendingClub have a 53% recovery rate overall. But to be conservative I will now assume the remaining $48 in principal to be completely lost. The current weighted average interest rate is reported as 12.33%, which will hopefully offer enough cushion to still net an 8% return.

I pick loans using a preset filter based on my LendingClub filters post as well as my Prosper filter research noted below. I never spend any time reading individual loan descriptions, keeping it passive and scalable. The filters are saved online and it takes just a minute to reinvest interest, although I still tend to forget until I do these updates. In addition to outstanding loan principal, the account also has $37.02 in idle cash, $125 in funding limbo, and $40.39 in accrued interest.

LendingClub.com account value: $5,161 (includes principal + accrued interest, minus 30+ day lates, after fees)

$5,000 Prosper.com Loan Portfolio. Below are screenshots of my Prosper account page as of 4/1/13.

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Here’s the 3rd and last piece of the monthly updates for my Beat the Market Experiment, a set of three real money portfolios started on November 1st, 2012. See also my $10,000 Benchmark and $10,000 Speculative portfolio updates for March 2013.

For this one, I started with $10,000 split evenly between Prosper Lending and Lending Club, and went to work lending other people money and earning interest with an 8% target net return.

$5,000 LendingClub Loan Portfolio. Below is a screenshot of my LendingClub account as of 3/1/13. I’ve had loans at LC before, but sold them all on the secondary market and started fresh for this tracking experiment. Here are screenshots of my total balance and my portfolio details. I would say my overall risk level is moderate-conservative with mostly A and B rated loans (top two grades).

(click to enlarge)

The portfolio is now 4 months old, with 206 currently active loans, 7 loans that were paid off early, and one is in funding. Two of the active loans are currently between 16-30 days late. The current weighted average interest rate is 12.36%, which means I can lose 4.36% to defaults and still net an 8% return.

I pick loans using a preset filter based on my LendingClub filters post as well as my Prosper filter research noted below. I never spend any time reading individual loan descriptions, as I’m trying to keep this mostly passive and scalable. The filters are saved online and it takes just a minute to reinvest interest, although I still tend to forget until I do these updates. In additional to outstanding loan principal, the account also has $249 in idle cash, $25 in funding limbo, and $38 in accrued interest.

LendingClub.com account value: $5,160 (includes principal + accrued interest, after fees)

$5,000 Prosper.com Loan Portfolio. Below are screenshots of my Prosper account page as of 3/1/13.
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Here’s the 3rd and last piece of the monthly updates for my Beat the Market Experiment, a set of three real money portfolios started on November 1st, 2012. See also my $10,000 Benchmark and $10,000 Speculative portfolio updates for February 2013.

I started with $10,000 split evenly between Prosper Lending and Lending Club, and went to work lending other people money and earning interest with an 8% target net return.

$5,000 LendingClub Loan Portfolio. Below is a screenshot of my LendingClub account as of 2/1/13. Keep in mind that I had loans before, but sold them all on the secondary market and started fresh for this tracking experiment. However, the charged-off loans from that period stayed on my record even though the overall return for my very conservative loan portfolio back then was over 5%.

(click to enlarge)

I now have a total of 194 active and issued loans. I used simple loan criteria based on my LendingClub filters post as well as my Prosper filter research noted below, saving me from having to look through individual loan descriptions. The portfolio is very young, but so far all loans are current (16 days past due is considered late). The current weighted average interest rate is 11.66%, which means I can lose 3.66% to defaults and still net an 8% return.

LendingClub.com account value: $5,113.27 (includes principal + accrued interest, after fees)

$5,000 Prosper.com Loan Portfolio. Below are screenshots of my Prosper account page as of 2/1/13.
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Here’s the last part of the monthly update for my Beat The Market Experiment, a set of three real-money portfolios started on November 1st, 2012. See also my $10,000 Benchmark and $10,000 Speculative portfolio updates for January 2013.

On 11/1/12, I deposited $10,000 split evenly between Prosper Lending and Lending Club, and went to work lending other people money and earning interest with an 8% target net return.

$5,000 LendingClub Loan Portfolio, January 2013 Update. (A little late on the update, although only about $9 in extra interest was accrued since 1/1.) Below is a screenshot of my LendingClub account as of 1/9/13. Keep in mind that I had loans before, but sold them all on the secondary market and started fresh for this tracking experiment.

(click to enlarge)

Since last month, I invested another $400 for a total of 191 active and issued loans. I used simple loan filters based on my LendingClub filters post as well as my Prosper filter research noted below, and haven’t spent any time looking through any individual loan descriptions. The portfolio is very young, but so far all loans are current (16 days past due is considered late).

LendingClub.com account value: $5,082.51 (includes principal, accrued interest, net of fees)
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As the last part of my ongoing Beat The Market Experiment, here’s the December 2012 update for my consumer loan portfolio. See also my $10,000 Benchmark and $10,000 Play portfolio updates for December 2012.

On 11/1/12, I deposited $10,000 split evenly between Prosper Lending and Lending Club, and went to work lending other people money and earning interest. Here’s how I’m doing it:

1. 8-10% target return, net of defaults and fees. Each site provides an estimated return based on the interest rate and expected delinquency rate, but I am also using specific filters to try and maximize my return. Overall, I would say my risk profile is moderate/conservative. If I can get an 8% net return over the next 3+ years in the current interest rate environment, I’ll view the portfolio as a success.
2. Minimal time commitment. I’ve done the manual loan-picking thing, and I’m over it. 400 loans at $25 a pop would take forever. Both sites allow you to save customized loan filters and use an automated investment algorithm to pick a portfolio for you.
3. Loan Filters. I’m constantly tinkering with the loan filters, but you can get a good idea of what I am using by reading this best Prosper filters post and this older LendingClub filter post. Nothing too fancy, just some broad filters based on historical inefficiencies that may or may not persist.
4. Loan term lengths and reinvested interest. I thought about only buying loans with 3-year terms in order to have a clean ending timeframe to this experiment, but in reality that would leave a lot of cash at the end as many people pay off their loans early. Also, higher rates are found in 5-year loans. Given the ample liquidity I found in secondary market, if I wanted to end the experiment I could just sell all my loans and cash out. (In October, I sold all of my existing loans on the secondary Folio market in a matter of days, quite easy as long as you’re willing to sell at a discount.) This way I will reinvest any additional cash into new loans maximize return.

LendingClub Details
Below is a screenshot of my LendingClub account as of 12/3/12:
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