Any attorneys among us want to comment on whether there is anything of importance in the new Folio "Trading Agreement" notice/advisory? (see below)
"Purchasing Notes on the Trading Platform is inherently risky as the asking price is set by the seller, and may be priced higher than the remaining return expected on the Note.
Purchasing Notes with a negative Yield to Maturity or with large markups are almost certain to return less money than the price you will pay, producing negative returns on your investment.
There are various reasons a current Note holder chooses to list a Note for sale. Often Note holders are simply looking to liquidate their holdings; they may place Notes for sale at or slightly below par value (i.e., below the remaining interest and principal remaining on the Note). However, other sellers may be seeking to profit on their sales. They may price Note above its par value, either in the hopes that a buyer will view the Notes as very valuable or because they may hope to profit from a lack of buyer's insight. They may hope that the buyer will not realize that the price has been set so high, or they may hope that a buyer will not be paying close attention to the price set.
Please be wary of Notes that are priced at high premiums.
In addition, the original interest rate set by Lending Club was based on the borrower's credit attributes at the time the loan was requested and may no longer represent the underlying risk of the Note. While the underlying risk may have increased, the interest rate has not and may not offset the risk a buyer undertakes when purchasing a Note.
Since the Note was issued the borrower's attributes have most likely changed, among these could include changes to credit score, income, employment, credit utilization, debt-to-income, and many other important factors. You should buy a Note only if you understand and are comfortable with these risks".
Wow you actually have to click Accept on that too, in order to get to Folio. Fortunately just a one-time deal, unlike Prosper where you have to do it each and every time.
Anything of importance? No. In fact it's sad that they had to actually say these things.
They left out a couple things:
1. Don't talk to strangers
2. Look both ways before crossing the street
"Any attorneys among us want to comment on whether there is anything of importance in the new Folio "Trading Agreement" notice/advisory? (see below)"
Anybody who needs a lawyer to understand that shouldn't be trading here to begin with.
With the Folio section of IR being down, I can't get an exact percentage of how many notes are listed for higher than 5% markup. I can say, it's very, very high, with most of those probably being owned by Core!
Core....out of curiosity, how many notes do you currently have up for sale on Folio.
Yes, both excellent scenarios there. Goodie, now we have a couple good arguments ready in case they consider disallowing negative YTM listings. I was going to ask for wagers on when that day will come.
".....thereby creating the conditions for inevitable countermeasures. "
Such as what?
The most obvious and easiest solution would be to put a markup cap on Folio listings.
Otherwise, what? Throw people out because they are making money?
Not a lawyer here, but it sounds to me more a like a statement to protect the sellers, not the buyers. I wouldn't worry about it cutting into the note flipping side of the platform, if anything, they seem to be saying "tough luck" to the people who overpay.
Not a lawyer either, but its a statement to protect lending club and nobody else. Its the standard CYA for "What? I lost money?!? Nobody warned me!!!1! I'll sue!"
Its also why they stopped saying that nobody with 800+ notes lost money, and why they cut the expected returns by ~3%. CYA.
No idea why the yelling or whispering your Folio returns would matter. It's not like LC doesn't have the data at its disposal . . .
Not a lawyer either, but its a statement to protect lending club and nobody else. Its the standard CYA for "What? I lost money?!? Nobody warned me!!!1! I'll sue!"
Good point, LC's primary concern is protecting LC. What I meant is that LC *might* be getting calls from these dopes who have purchased notes with negative YTMs and asking them to undo the trade. This statement protects the seller in that LC can point to the buyer's user agreement that he/she understood that people need to use their brains when they purchase notes.
I have certainly not acknowledged the wisdom of anyone's remarks. I do, however, know better than to argue with high intelligence individuals who see things which do not exist. It is a volatile combination. Any offered "wisdom" can turn into a self fulfilling prophecy.
Core, it's fairly apparent that you're generally working on a high volume method, but I find it surprising you're able to identify so many notes for sale that can stand a price increase of over 1% to balance the sales fee on your side and still flip quickly.
Thoughts:
FolioFn is comprised of two main streams of notes: fast moving notes that people using automated tools snap up very quickly, and slow moving notes that sit around. You can't be targeting the fast moving notes because you couldn't get the volume you need, and you can't be targeting the slow moving notes because they're already moving slowly. You therefore seem to have some ability to take a loan that would sit around and turn it into a note that sells fairly quickly while making a profit. There's no obvious logical way this could happen, so one of the following is most likely true:
There are a ton of totally irrational buyers that buy marked up notes they wouldn't buy when they were less marked up
You're better and faster on the trigger to grab the quick moving notes than I think is possible at your volume
You have a personal algorithm to pick out slow moving notes that will sell reliably but slowly at a higher price
You have some way of marketing your notes as good buys to the public