There has been quite the discussion brewing over on the Lend Academy Forum about a recent change from Lending Club. I think it’s important to point out this recent change as they affect some of the third party tools that I feature on the blog. In a nutshell, the change is that instead of tools being able to constantly get up-to-date data from the CSV file right at release time, it is now only updated once every minute. For those that don’t know what a CSV file is, it is simply a text file which includes organized data - in this case all of the available loans. You can read other forum member’s thoughts here. What does this mean for third party tools? In the case of P2P-Picks - a lot.
Prosper Automated Investing with Nickel Steamroller
I recently got to a point financially where I was comfortable investing with Prosper. I wanted to be able to compare the two platforms as well as diversify my peer to peer lending investments across both Lending Club and Prosper. As an added bonus, you get to follow along as I report on my returns and learn how I invest with Prosper. Since I have no interest in hand selecting loans, it was a no brainer for me to automate with Nickel Steamroller - which is currently free. If you’re interested in automating your investing with Nickel Steamroller, please be sure to contact them and let them know I sent you. They also offer automation with Lending Club and in my opinion are the number one resource for peer to peer lending analytics. In my next post, I plan to outline more in detail my thoughts on investing with Prosper, but for now here is my latest video on automating my Prosper investing with Nickel Steamroller!
You can check out and subscribe to the Peer & Social Lending YouTube channel here
Lending Club Automated Investing vs. Third Party Automation
Last week, Lending Club announced that their form of automation formerly known as Lending Club Prime is now simply called “Automated Investing.” I’ll start by stating that I have never used Lending Club Prime or their version of Automated Investing. However, I think it is important to write about the major differences are between Lending Club’s Automated service and the third party tools that I have used. I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments if I have missed or overlooked anything.
LendingRobot now registered as Investment Advisor with the SEC
As social lending continues to mature, it comes to no surprise that the third party automation tools continue to mature with it. I’m excited to share that LendingRobot is now registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as an Investment Advisor. If you are a Lending Robot user you already received an email earlier this week. Besides this being a step in the right direction for third party tools, this change also comes with a new fee structure which I’ll outline below. I’m hoping this change will also prompt retail investors who were previously reluctant about using a third party tool to reconsider. [Read more...]
I went on vacation last week, but my Lending Club account didn’t (How I invested $1,000 in less than 1 week)
It wasn’t until last week until I truly appreciated the fact that my account was fully automated. I used to think automation wasn’t necessary. After all, I’m a software developer by trade and usually have my laptop within reach during the 4 pm or 8 pm CST note release times. However, last week I went on a road trip to South Carolina and camped along the way down south - not conducive to managing a p2p lending account that isn’t automated. I tried to coordinate a significant amount of capital (it’s all about perspective people) being invested while I was gone and see how long it would take to invest. [Read more...]
BlueVestment Video - Free Third Party Tool for Lending Club
When it comes to investing in social lending, it is no secret that I’m a fan of automated investing. In our first video, I featured LendingRobot and today I’m featuring a free tool called BlueVestment. I’ve been using BlueVestment paired with p2p-picks.com for about a month now. BlueVestment allows you to select your own filters, but it also connects picks from Bryce’s credit models over at p2p-picks. It takes some time to get setup, but once you create the accounts it really is completely hands off.
If you want more information, check out our Q & A with Nathan (Owner of BlueVestment) here or feel free to ask questions in the comments.
P2P Lending Diversification and Portfolios
There are many strategies in investing in P2P Lending, several of which were outlined in our last series of posts by New Jersey Guy and his experience with FOLIOfn. You should note that those 3 strategies were just a taste of the secondary market and there are some very dedicated people out there who are trying out all sorts of strategies. Just hop on over to the Lend Academy Forum and I’m sure others could teach you a thing or two. I’ve heard New Jersey Guy mention diversification within peer to peer lending investments several times and it is something I now realize I knew nothing about. [Read more...]
Peer to Peer Lending Automation - The Key to Investing in Lending Club
If only it were this easy…
Over the last couple of months, we have featured 3 tools for automating your investments in Lending Club. Before the question and answer sessions we posted, my process for my investing was completely manual. Brian was investing manually as well and he actually setup a third party mobile app to send him notifications just before Lending Club releases notes. Even with my relatively small account, I was missing feeding times and had available cash just sitting in my account pretty often. Automation tools are starting to mature and I decided that it was finally time for me to try them out and hopefully help others who were considering automation. [Read more...]
Q & A with BlueVestment - FREE Automated Investing Tool for LendingClub
BlueVestment is a third party tool for automation with LendingClub. Recently, they have made their product completely free for investors. Not only does the tool allow you to select your own custom filters, but it also ties into P2P-Picks for loan picking - a feature that I’m currently using. (If you haven’t heard of Bryce Mason from P2P-Picks, you may also be interested in the podcast he did with LendAcademy here)
Nathan from BlueVestment was nice enough to participate in our third part in a series of posts about third party tools. If you have any questions for Nathan, please feel free to post in the comments.
LendingRobot - Introduction Video
Automated Investing with LendingRobot
This is our first video featuring LendingRobot, which is an automated tool for investing in Lending Club. They just opened registration to the public a few weeks ago and my investing in Lending Club has become a lot easier. I’m starting to realize just how nice it is to not have to login to Lending Club during the feeding times.
If you missed any of our coverage of LendingRobot, you can view all of our content (including our Q & A session) here: http://www.peersociallending.com/lendingrobot
If the feedback is positive, we will try and feature short videos of many automated investment tools for Lending Club/Prosper. As always, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.