We just fixed a slew of bugs including a particularly irritating one that affected account creation and changing your account information. Sorry about that. If you notice any more bugs, please help us out and report them to . Thanks for notifying us of this issue. (Asparagirl, Jess)

If you haven’t been keeping up oil spiked $10+ today and is looking to close above $138/barrel today. Kind of hard to miss this since I can’t find a news site that doesn’t have this on their front page as a headline.

So what are the supposed reasons for the spike?

1) ECB probably going to raise rates. (Lower dollar)
2) Unemployment rate spiked up. (Pressures Fed not to raise rates)
3) Israel minister says attack on Iran might be necessary. (P A N I C)

I remember how gas was $2.4x last August and I thought it was getting expensive.

This update takes care of a lot of loose ends from the previous release as well as a long awaited ROI update. Once again, thank you for all your feedback.

Lenders in some cases will notice a significant drop in their estimated ROI. This is because of several tweaks made to the ROI calculation including:

• Repurchased loans have been split into 2 categories: Repurchased and Defaulted (Repurchased). If a repurchased loan was repurchased for $0 it will now be reflected as a default. List of recategorized loans can be found here. (jazzpianist, Paul S.)
• Actual default sale prices are now used for calculating defaulted loans. Projected default sale prices will be based on historic sales and the percentages used can be found in the table at the bottom of the FAQ. (This table is updated nightly)
• Properly calculated the loan age for 4+ month lates, defaults and paid loans. (NewHorizon, bamalucky)

Notable bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug where lenders in a watch list sometimes disappeared after a data update. (ccarucci, Chocell)
• Fixed a bug on the lender analysis page where the extended credit data was not working correctly. (SpiritHelper)
• Fixed a bug where keyword searches were not finding every result. (Ken L.)

We are aware of the watch list problems and we are working to correct the problem as soon as possible. Thanks to everyone who reported the issue to us. If you notice any other problems, please email us at . Try to be as specific as possible in describing the bug you are seeing.

The watch list is one of the most useful tools on the website. It allows you to track what other lender’s are bidding on as well as track what your friend’s are doing.

You can use a watch list to:

• Create an aggregate watch list profile consisting of multiple lenders.
• Track multiple lenders and see what they bid on.

This tutorial shows you how to create and manage a lender watch list.

• Step 1. Create a watch list by entering a watch list name. Pic #1
• Step 2. Click into the watch list you just created. Pic #2
• Step 3. Add lender(s) to your watch list. Pic #3
• Step 4. After your done adding lender(s) to your watch list, click the Summary, Loan Portfolio and Bids tabs to view the aggregate watch list portfolio. Pic #4

This update took a little longer than usual because it contains a significant amount of changes. Sorry about keeping you waiting :-) If you notice any bugs, shoot an email to . We’re still going through all the feedback that’s accumulated, so give us some time to get back to you.

The update is broken up into two parts: account and non-account related features.

Account functionality:

• Added filtering by extended credit data to the following pages: Lender Profile, Historical Performance, Total Loans Funded, Listing Profile, Active Listings.
• Added Lender Watch Lists which allow you to create, aggregate, and track a customized group of lenders. You can see the aggregate results as a Watch List Profile, which work like the Lender/Group Profiles.
• Create custom profiles and run them against different lenders using the lender analysis tool: LendingStats_dot_com Profile.
• The Loan History page allows you to see the payment history of a particular loan.

Non-account functionality:

• Updated the Listing Picker page. You can now customize and see exactly how the Consensus rating is generated.
• Added a Bidding Activity page where you can see the bidding activity on Prosper by month and by day.
• Added a new chart section to Lender Profiles. You can now see a detailed breakdown of your lender portfolio by Loans Funded, Bidding Activity and Loan Map.
• Switched the late rate calculation from Penncro to FirstSource. You will notice a small drop in ROI if you have a significant amount of lates since FirstSource recovery rates are currently lower.
• Updated the way lender/group rank is calculated. They will now be based on the estimated portfolio size. The top lender/group lists on the home page have been updated as well. (NewHorizon)
• Added a shortcut to the top right search field that allows you to go to a listing page directly. Just type in the listing number.
• You can now filter lender and group lists by 12 and 18 month loan ages. (Johan)

Stumbled across this little gem from the Fed today. The map shows breakdown of mortgages by state, city and zip code. You can use it to check out how your area is doing.

The thought that came across my mind was to avoid lending to areas with the most problems. I compared the mortgage map to the prosper loan map. There is some correlation but as much as I thought, maybe someone out there will find this useful.

This is probably old news to most people, but if you haven’t been keeping up with the markets lately, Bear Stearns is being acquired by JP Morgan (with the help of the Fed). Under the deal JP Morgan is essentially risking $1 billion dollars while the Fed is putting up $29 billion dollars of tax payer money.

There has been a lot of controversy concerning this and whether it was necessary. The best arguments I have heard against the deal are neatly summarized in Hussman’s weekly market comment.

“The clear historical role of the Federal Reserve has been to manage the composition of Federal liabilities (by varying the mix of Treasury securities and monetary base - currency and bank reserves - held by the public). The recent transaction is a dangerous break from that role, in which unelected bureaucrats are committing public funds to facilitate private business transactions and selectively defend the holders of corporate securities. Only Congress has the Constitutional right, by the representative will of the people, to commit public funds. The Bear Stearns deal is a dangerous precedent and a dilution of Congressional prerogative.”

Some recent events if you haven’t been keeping up:

• Light Crude closed above $100 today.
• The market is pricing in a 50 basis point rate cut by the Fed in March which will drop money market rates to around 3%.
• Widespread pessimism in the housing market and subprime mortgages.

This actually looks like a better time to invest money into Prosper then 2007. Your going to get similar rates on loans compared to last year and you get some extra wiggle room since money market yields are around 2% lower then last year. My gut is telling me delinquency rates will also improve for loans vested in 2008 vs 2007.

I’m currently sitting at my computer and CNBC is interviewing Renauld Laplanche from LendingClub about peer to peer lending. They also mentioned Prosper and Zopa in a text blurb at the bottom of the screen. Prosper should get themselves an interview on CNBC. :)

In other news “AIG said it would need to alter the way it values credit default swaps involving collateralized debt obligations. CDOs are funds that contain slices of bonds, some of which are backed by mortgages.” (link)

I found this picture particularly interesting to sum up the current environment.