Always treat others with respect and kindness, even if you disagree with them. Avoid making personal attacks or insulting others, and try to maintain a civil and constructive tone in your discussions.
- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) ❤
No. of Recommendations: 2
Hi y'all,
We've had some periodic discussion of Upstart on the old Berk board, and now Manlobbi has been kind enough to open a board specific to that company. If you have interest in this former high-flyer, come join me for a chat there:
http://www.digitalscores.com/MB?pid=940248782For any unfamiliar with UPST, it's now a small-cap: $1 billion market cap, but in the not very distant past that number was a LOT bigger. They are applying AI to the business of qualifying people for loans, serving as a matchmaker between lender and borrower, taking a small slice of the pie. They grew at a phenomenal rate in recent years, and actually made a nice GAAP profit. However with the inflation/interest rate spike and tightening lending environment, their business dried up and they're losing money at present, even while continuing to grow the bones of the business expanding beyond their core business of personal loan qualification into auto, small business, and small dollar lending.
Founded by Google alums, I still believe in the business' future even though I'm sitting on a big loss in my share's values.
No. of Recommendations: 19
Hi BenSolar,
I'm sitting on a big loss in my share's values.
I am not a savvy investor, but after perusing Saul's Board over at TMF earlier this year, I unfortunately got caught up in the 'valuation doesn't matter' hype promoted over there and being a former IT guy, and a believer in AI, and also a proponent of giving everyone a chance to become wealthy (fair access to credit) I dumped 10K 'play money' into UPST. It's now sitting in my portfolio at a current value of $358.67.
I'm leaving it there to constantly remind me that valuation matters.
'38Packard
- will be steadfast in holding this one - but have little chance to ever see that $10K again.
No. of Recommendations: 2
I'm leaving it there to constantly remind me that valuation matters.
Congrats, you have learned the perhaps most important lesson in investing!
No. of Recommendations: 3
in the spirit of ''misery loves company'', i could just about have written '38Packard's post , except that i only put in about 3.75K of play money which now sits at $264.
the sad part is that i knew it was a bad idea at the time, but got swept up with the technology and the graphs of their performance over fica alone. that, and every time i passed on it (because it was ridiculously overpriced).....it kept going up. : >)
i still think they may have a chance of having their technology validated and accepted over time and if that's the case, becoming quite profitable...someday.
having violated rule #2......
best,
mike
No. of Recommendations: 1
Upstart should do much better in a declining interest rate environment when the credit markets open up. They currently can't sell their securitized loans so they are focusing on R&D, developing their AI for mortgages and other loan products.
No. of Recommendations: 1
I was thinking it would be cool to start a company which would use Chatbot to determine whether you got a loan. You would prompt it with credit scores and so on and then let the loan applicant write an essay as to why Chatbot should ignore all that data and give her a loan anyway.
I think this would have AWFUL performance in terms of outperforming traditional loan vetting, but it would probably be a pretty good way to raise investment in the company.
R:)
No. of Recommendations: 1
money' into UPST. It's now sitting in my portfolio at a current value of $358.67.
I'm leaving it there to constantly remind me that valuation matters.
OK, but if it goes back up over $10,000 valuation, to be intellectually honest you will have to conclude that in fact, valuation doesn't matter.
Just sayin'
