One more indicator of the declining ROI on Prosper. The previous posts examined trends based on constant bidding criteria. But even when Prosper optimizes the bidding criteria, the trend is still downward:
Prosper shows two sets of portfolio plans: one dated January 10, the other February 27. For each portfolio plan, the estimated ROI declined between those dates.
Conservative: from 7.56% to 7.03%
Balanced: from 8.45% to 8.11%
Moderate: from 10.41% to 8.77%
Aggressive: from 11.60% to 10.49%
As with Prosper's other ROI estimates, the percentages are based on observation dates (and presumably calculation dates as well) just one month after the end of the loan origination period. I didn't run the numbers on the portfolio plans, but, for other ROI estimates, a later observation date and/or a later calculation date produces a lower ROI estimate on Prosper's performance page, suggesting that Prosper's methodology is overly optimistic.