Nickel Steamroller Archives

Lend Academy Investments Merges with Nickel Steamroller to Create NSR Invest

April 7, 2015 By Peter Renton 15 Comments

I first chatted with Michael Phillips, the founder of NickelSteamroller.com back in 2011. He talked about wanting to create a resource site for investors that would allow anyone to easily analyze the loan history of Lending Club. NickelSteamroller.com was born and I became one of its biggest fans.

Michael joined up with Rocco Galgano, the creator of Prosper-Stats.com, in 2013 and together they have made NSR (as it has become known) into the industry’s number one resource and analytics site for Lending Club and Prosper investors. They also created the first third party order management system in the industry – something that I have been using for my P2P lending investments since 2012.

For years Michael and I have talked about combining our efforts in some way but we didn’t get serious until after LendIt last year, when both the Lend Academy Investments and Nickel Steamroller teams all met in person for the first time. Last month we closed on a deal that merged these two companies.

Introducing NSR Invest

The merger of Lend Academy Investments and Nickel Steamroller has created NSR Invest. We feel that this merger will create a stronger company and one that provides a more complete set of services for all P2P lending investors, with a definite emphasis on the retail investor.

NSR Invest will offer products for three different kinds of clients: [Read more…]

How Ryan is Investing in Lending Club and Prosper in 2015

February 20, 2015 By Ryan Lichtenwald 8 Comments

Many folks find it valuable to learn how others are investing on both Lending Club and Prosper, especially when they are first getting started. Many strategies are discussed on the Lend Academy forum. I thought I’d share how I am specifically investing in both Lending Club and Prosper. My strategies have changed over time and I am currently using one automation/analytics tool with third party credit models. As you read this, keep in mind that I have a relatively small amount in my p2p lending accounts with around $20,000 invested. This certainly has an effect on investment strategy.

None of this information should be considered investment advice and I do not recommend you follow my strategies. You should consider your own situation and risk tolerance before making investment decisions.

Automation/Analytics Tool Choice

I have written at length about all of the sites for analytics and automation tools. I personally use Nickel Steamroller for everything and there are a few reasons for this. I view it as an all-in-one tool. This means that with one account, I can do portfolio analysis, detailed backtesting and automation. They also support both Prosper and Lending Club for all of these features, which makes it easy to keep track of multiple accounts. [Read more…]

Overview of P2P Automation and Analytics Sites – Part 1

February 17, 2015 By Ryan Lichtenwald Leave a Comment

There is an ever increasing number of websites dedicated to aiding in analytics and investing in Lending Club and Prosper. In this comprehensive two-part series we will look at all of the popular tools that investors use today (there are ten in all) in order to backtest strategies, automate their investments and analyze data. Analytics and data has been a large part of p2p lending from the start and investors are always looking for an advantage to potentially maximize returns. Investment automation allows for a much better investment experience versus selecting notes on the platform by hand.

Nickel Steamroller has been around since mid 2011 and eventually merged with ProsperStats to bring Prosper and Lending Club data analytics into one single platform. With their site, you can back-test investment strategies and see how certain strategies would have fared over time. (Click of any of the images in this post to view them at full size.)

In the Results Options tab, you are able to further breakdown your strategy to look for other opportunities to increase ROI. For instance, a commonly used filter in the past has been to simply filter on inquiries. The below is the filtered breakout for loans that were issued before the end of 2013. [Read more…]

Nickel Steamroller 2.0 Launches With Support for Both Lending Club and Prosper Investors

January 30, 2014 By Peter Renton 13 Comments

For more than two years now Nickel Steamroller (NSR) has been the leading resource site for Lending Club investors. But for Prosper investors Prosper Stats has been the goto site. Last night, in what is certainly the biggest development for serious p2p investors in a long time, NSR 2.0 launched with the best of both these worlds.

A Complete Lending Club and Prosper Resource

There are so many great things to say about NSR 2.0 I barely know where to begin. For a start, Michael Phillips, the founder of Nickel Steamroller, has teamed up with Rocco, the founder of Prosper Stats, to provide a one stop resource for investors in the two leading p2p lenders. There is complete filtering and analysis available now for both platforms in the one place. Analyzing the loan history for both Lending Club and Prosper is vastly improved and that in itself is easily the most extensive tool ever created for retail investors.

I have been using the beta of NSR 2.0 for a couple of weeks now and I really believe it is a game changer. I love having all my filters for both Lending Club and Prosper in the one place. There is also way more data to inquire on than ever before. Because it is using the APIs of Lending Club and Prosper the data available for filtering is more extensive than what either platform provides for their retail investors. Not only that but you can download your portfolio for both Lending Club and Prosper – while that feature has been possible on Lending Club for years it has never been available for Prosper investors until now.

Auto-Invest is Coming for Lending Club and Prosper

[Read more…]

The Peer to Peer Lending Default Curve

September 6, 2011 By Peter Renton 32 Comments

Most p2p investors will likely experience a borrower default at some point. I have been curious for some time to see a distribution of when these defaults occur during the lifetime of a loan. Now, Michael from Nickel Steamroller has produced a chart that shows this very thing.

He has taken just Lending Club data for now and he has mapped every default and when it occurs during the loan term. To make the chart more useful he is only including 36-month loans and has excluded all loans that are less than a year old. The Lending Club chart is below and here is a link to the charts page on Nickel Steamroller which is updated daily.