LAFDI market report - Fear of the Unknown

* Returns are calculated for the week to local market close on Thursday.

 It is increasingly interesting to note that whilst the non-transferable underlying P2P loan assets continue to serenely deliver returns - the LARI returns index is showing a 12 month historic return at 6.26% - the associated equity plays have been extremely volatile.  Whilst I would never argue that lack of transferability is a good thing it is a damn sight more comfortable to be holding P2P assets right now than mainstream equity or credit. 

The online lending plays enjoyed some respite this week with OnDeck Capital and Lending Club both re-bounding after last week’s rout.  LAFDI darling Lending Tree also enjoyed a bounce.  In the week that Lending Club announced that it was scheduling its Q4 earnings release for Thursday, February 11th prior to market open the shares also enjoyed some supportive broker commentary from both Morgan Stanley and Pacific Crest reiterate their positive stances. 

Qiwi suffered from the contagion effects of oil and ruble weakness on their perceived Russian exposure.  It was also hard to find any concrete news flow that would have affected Earthport and equally hard to identify what perceived contagion might have caused the panic. 

The LAFDI was rebalanced on 15/01/2016 and two stocks have been added to the index:

• Square is a leading mobile credit card processor for small businesses.
• PayPal the household name payment processer completed its spin off from Ebay in July 2015.  The company is now free to work with other online marketplaces aside from just Ebay. 

Please note – The LAFDI is now available on Bloomberg.  Tickers:

LAFDITR GO for the Total Return Index

LAFDIPR GO for the Price Return Index