Investing

December 7th, 2011

Lately I’ve been obsessing over passive income.  Namely how I don’t have any. If you stopped working tomorrow, how long would it be until you ran out of cash? This will be priority #1 in 2012. -Nick

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Here’s an update on my experiment with peer-to-peer lending with Prosper.com.  The micro-loans have been active for 6 months, so it’s a good time to review the performance. My Prosper numbers: Initial investment: $5000 Interest payments received: $393.18 Charge-offs: $25 Net Gain (interest minus charge-offs): $368.18 Approximate annualized rate of return: 14.7% I’m pretty happy [...]

Continue reading about Prosper.com 6 Month Update: Earning 14.7%

Now that I’m a couple months into my experiment in peer-to-peer lending with Prosper.com, I thought it would be a good time for a performance update. Using their automatic investment plan, I bought a portfolio of 199 notes with varying credit ratings.  So far, 193 are current, 4 are delinquent, and 2 have been paid [...]

Continue reading about Prosper.com Update: My Loans Are Earning Over 10%

I recently signed up for Prosper.com.  Prosper.com is a site that facilitates peer-to-peer lending — offering borrowers lower interest rates than credit cards or hard money loans, and offering lenders higher interest rates than traditional CDs or savings accounts.  It’s a win-win, and a cool business model that creates value for everyone involved. Across a [...]

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July 8th, 2010

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine is bestselling author Michael Lewis’ (Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side) look at the 2008 financial crisis and the events and adventures that created it.  I didn’t get it.  Or, more accurately, it wasn’t a very satisfying read. The Big Short leaves you — at various points in [...]

Continue reading about Book Review: The Big Short

September 16th, 2009

I recently had the opportunity to play the CashFlow board game with a group of Bay Area real estate investors.  CashFlow is a game designed by Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) to teach basic financial and bookkeeping skills.  It’s something of a cross between Monopoly and Life, with the object of the game being [...]

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