# Lending Club Experiences **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989 "2009-10-24T19:00:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 37
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/722 "2014-07-09T20:41:22Z")
Wow, this is unheard-of: I threw 25 dollars at a loan this morning that was 50%ish funded. I logged on just now - and it had ISSUED already. The listing was filed on 7/6, and it was issued within hours of funding. I’ve **never** had a loan issue that fast. All I can think of is that I added verified income back to the filter, and so that loan was ready to roll. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/723 "2014-07-09T22:39:30Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Is anyone using the automated investing program? The minimum now for that is 2,500; at my current rates of contributions and repayments that’s 6 or so months away for me. I am; it has been working great for me. I reported in this thread the difficulties I had last year investing $4k - very few loans available when I looked and also virtually none of the C - F loans that I wanted. With Automated Investing I have set the criteria for what I want and the percentage of loans of each grade. Because I am low on the C - F, it has been buying those for me. As I receive over $500 in payments each month, I need to buy a new loan nearly every day on average. It is great for this to be done automatically. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/724 "2014-07-12T12:01:27Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > Current NAR is 9.67% and Adjusted NAR 8.82% > > However, I have not added more money for a year and when I look at what the account was worth one year ago, that suggests a return of 7.8% It did take about three months to invest my last contribution, so maybe LC ignores that period of low return while I had cash earning nothing. Looking further into my returns (using Quicken), YTD is 9.82% versus LC’s NAR of 9.79%, so very close. Quicken has no knowledge of late loans, of course, so cannot give the equivalent of Adjusted NAR. I first invested in April 2011. Average annual return since then is 7.86% (I actually lost money in 2011 when two of my first 40 loans defaulted without a single payment). ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/725 "2014-07-12T21:29:41Z")
Amarone, I remember when you mentioned that three months to do the investment! My husband works in the consulting division of an accounting firm - and there are a lot of independence rules for employees. Put simply, you’re not supposed to invest in a company the firm audits (more to it than that, of course). Well, the people in charge of enforcing that got wind of peer-to-peer lending and their knee-jerk reaction was “better not, you might accidentally lend to a ‘restricted entity’”. Our response (and others’) was that 1: we have NO way of knowing to whom the loans are made, and 2: the loans added made to individuals, and their audit clients are corporations. They were encouraging people to consider divesting just in case, while they reviewed it. My reaction to that was that given the time frame to reinvest (this was just after you had posted about that), and how tough the loans were to sell (it was also about the time they instituted the no selling while pending rule), it would take us month to divest or reinvest, so we chose to hang tight for the moment. Fortunately, on review, they realized that this did NOT pose an independence issue. ---
**Author:** ![core\_dump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@core\_dump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/core_dump)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/726 "2014-07-14T10:14:03Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > 2: the loans added made to individuals, and their audit clients are corporations. LC is now loaning to businesses as well. My account does not have access to these loans but they do exist. For a normal invididual investor account there probably won’t be any concerns, but I have to wonder if these loans might find their way onto the secondary platform at some point. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/727 "2014-07-25T10:57:10Z")
I just put in another $5,000 and automated investing will take over as soon as it clears, which should be by end of today. I will report how it goes. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/728 "2014-07-26T11:06:59Z")
Automated Investing kicked in at 5pm yesterday and placed orders for 141 notes. Looking good so far. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/729 "2014-07-27T11:06:18Z")
32 more orders submitted yesterday. I assume the slowdown is because Automated Investing aims to achieve my target balance of loan grades. I mostly need D and E loans to hit my target, so there are a lot fewer to choose from. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/730 "2014-07-29T02:47:38Z")
It took just over two days for Automated Investing to find 200 loans. Now we have to go through the process of a bunch of them failing review and more loan orders having to be issued. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/731 "2014-09-18T03:10:27Z")
Anyone noticed any change in the nature of notes recently? In the last couple of weeks my automated investing purchases have virtually dried up and I now have $550+ cash accumulated. I browsed notes and saw that there were 310 not yet filled. My criteria are to include 36 month loans of grades B - E. Not one of these 310 fit my criteria. There were 71 36 month loans, all grade A. The remaining 239 were all 60 month loans. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/732 "2014-09-18T14:32:07Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > Anyone noticed any change in the nature of notes recently? In the last couple of weeks my automated investing purchases have virtually dried up and I now have $550+ cash accumulated. I browsed notes and saw that there were 310 not yet filled. My criteria are to include 36 month loans of grades B - E. Not one of these 310 fit my criteria. There were 71 36 month loans, all grade A. The remaining 239 were all 60 month loans. I’ve noticed the exact thing. I used to have 100-200 notes to look at after applying my filter but now I’m down to 50’ish and nearly all are A and B. The number of unfiltered notes has also dropped significantly. I wonder what has caused this? I browse the notes at nearly the same time everyday. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/733 "2014-09-18T14:36:42Z")
I just browsed and applied my filter (36-month, exclude relisted, 60 months since last record or delinquency): From 350 loans to 49. Every single one of the 49 were A. Some of these have credit scores down in the 665-669 range. Less loans available and all A (why someone with a 665 score is an A is also questionable). ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/734 "2014-09-19T19:38:40Z")
I have money waiting to reinvest but it’s still going on. Apply my filter and there are 99 available. All A. Credit scores as low as 660. Unfiltered, out of 439, about 350 are A/B. Odd behavior. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/735 "2014-09-19T20:20:23Z")
My state only allows me to invest in the folio note trading platform. Is anyone doing that? It seems like very few people would sell a note below the expected return unless they think the risk has increased. Why would a state want to only allow the riskier investment? What am I missing here? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/736 "2014-09-26T13:07:43Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > My state only allows me to invest in the folio note trading platform. Is anyone doing that? It seems like very few people would sell a note below the expected return unless they think the risk has increased. > > Why would a state want to only allow the riskier investment? What am I missing here? I don’t understand the reasoning behind some states not allowing initial note investments; I know that **core\_dump** trades exclusively on the secondary market so s/he could fill you in some. As far as selling at a loss: yes, that’s often because the loan looks to be going bad. I’ve done that with past-due loans a few times, just so I don’t have to deal with it going to charge-off status and possible later recoveries. The buyer of such a loan is taking the gamble that if it does go current again, they’ve snapped up a bargain (20 dollars in principal, bought for 2 dollars, it goes current, they collect a few months payments, and they’ve made a profit). My account has mostly been doing OK, though one loan was due on 9/5 and hasn’t paid yet. That’s about 16 dollars down the drain, I imagine. That’s most of a month’s interest income (last month’s was 26 dollars; I’m a small-potatoes investor!!). Funny thing I just noticed: I brought up the listing of my loans and the status of one is “Loan is being issued”. I’ve never seen THAT before. I’d bet in an hour it will say “Issued”. I think I just caught it at the right moment. Right now my total count of loans is just over 100 - I only add a few dollars a month, but I do reinvest all my repayments. So I’m getting about 4 new loans a month. I’m about 4 months away from crossing the threshold to be able to use automated investing. **wguy123** , hard to imagine a 665 score getting an A rating but I guess it’s conceivable, if the loan is for a small enough amount and everything else lined up. They no longer have their formula online (that I can find) but I seem to recall it was linked to their FICO, number of open accounts, debt to income ratio, recent inquiries, etc. Maybe someone had all the right things lined up, but still somehow had a lower FICO? ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/737 "2014-09-26T14:01:12Z")
The loan volume and correct grading is back. Currently 1400 loans. Apply my filter and it drops to around 300 with the C’s and below back. A 660 score is back to being a C for most although there are a few A’s (but unlike before they aren’t ALL A’s). I wonder what happened? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/738 "2014-11-18T01:21:11Z")
It’s been a while since this thread was bumped - it’s something like 5 years old now! Anyone else get an email regarding an IPO today? I’m curious about it. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/739 "2014-11-18T01:53:42Z")
I got it. I am not interested. I do not buy shares in individual companies, and prefer to limit my exposure in LC to being a lender. And I do not want to have to open an account at Fidelity. ---
**Author:** ![gregorit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@gregorit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gregorit)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/740 "2014-11-18T12:52:38Z")
I’m actually glad to be afforded the opportunity to get in on the IPO. (Assuming, of course, that giving Fidelity the right to contact you eventually leads to such an offer.) IPOs do carry significant risk, of course, but a balanced and diverse portfolio needs to offset such things as peer-to-peer loans. If you don’t believe LC will be a thriving, productive, and profitable publicly-traded company, I definitely recommend you shy away. Of course, it all comes down what the initial offering price is. =) ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989/741 "2014-11-18T15:45:16Z")
[Here is an article](http://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-need-to-know-before-you-invest-in-ipos-2011-6) about investing in IPOs. A summary from that: > [@](#): > > IPO stocks have averaged a 19% gain on the first day of trading, going back to the 1960’s. From 1980 to 2009, the average first-day gain for a sample of 7,354 stocks is 18%. > … > > IPO stocks show a tendency to substantially under-perform over a three-five year period after going public. Dr. Jay Ritter at the University of Florida regularly updates his research on this effect. In his most recent results (published in June 2011), the average three-year return of IPO stocks lagged the average three-year returns of similar non-IPO stocks by 7.2%. So it looks best to get in and out quickly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lending-club-experiences/514989.md?page=38)