A slight confusion

First of all, thank you for writing such a nice product like Zorro, and especially for providing it for free!

As a new user, I'm slightly confused. The manual says not to have more than $7000 in trading account. It also says to open demo account with FXCM to test the app. But opening a practice account with FXCM automatically opens $50000 account, without any chance to change the starting capital?!

So, now that I've started the app for the first time to see how it works, and still waiting for the first trade, I'm not sure if trading is blocked because the account is over $7000, or if I just need to wait a little bit more for the strategy to pick up?

My suggestions:

- if the $7000 limit relates only to real accounts, I suggest that fact clearly stated in the manual
- if even the demo accounts must be below $7000, then you should instruct how to accomplish that with FXCM practice accounts, because it's not obvious at all

Once again, thanks for the very nice application and great tutorial, I enjoyed reading it and see a lot of potential in Zorro!

While at first impressions, I also see some errors. I don't know if they're fatal or not.

Z1fx (oP group) .
Undefined function: SATR.

and

Error 046: EUR/USD price gap at bar 154

But the strategy is running, although it hasn't traded yet. If the error above is not fatal, maybe it could spell "Warning" instead of "Error"?

Thank you for your post. Yes, of course the 7K limit is for real accounts only. I thought this were mentioned in the manual, but you're right - it's missing and will be added.

The errors can be safely ignored. The SATR error was due to compiling the fx versions with a slightly different version. Both error messages will be gone in the next update.

Hello everyone, I'm new here.
Please let me first thank the staf for the wonderful work they are doing, Congrats!
I firmly believe Zorro is a great project and also lite-c programming is very interesting and powerful tool: although unfortunately I've got no programming experience, I decided to follow your workshops so I can try to encode an interesting strategy I found.

In the meantime I activated Zorro on an existing demo account as well on a micro real account: same warnings as above also in my real account but Jcl has already provided an answer.

I will keep you informed about developments/results.
Thank a lot.

Regards

Thank you for clarification, jcl!

Oh well, as the Z1fx strategy trades on H4 bars, I guess weeks could pass before the first trade. So instead of waiting for it to happen, I guess I rather spend time investigating Zorro's other capabilites. This, of course, generates more newbie questions...

I run backtest on the Z1fx and looked at the generated graph, which is rather confusing. I've attached it so that we look at the same graph. What I don't understand is how in the period between approximately Feb 12 and Jun 12 there are only winning trades (and one big at that!), but the equity curve is falling?

The equity curve is the total equity. The price curve and trades shown are only for the asset that you selected before clicking [Result], in this case EUR/USD.

Showing all trades of all assets would make the chart somewhat hard to look at.

Ah, I see. And I was wondering what is that asset selector for if I'm trading asset portfolio?! So you managed to answer two questions at once. Thanks!

Still, if possible, I would suggest to implement per asset equity curve, and show together with the appropriate asset trades on charts. Then add 'Portfolio' or 'Total' option to graph the total equity. In some future version, time allowed, of course.

The chart as it is is mighty confusing.

You have a point here. We'll probably show the per-asset equity curve also in the chart.

Hello everyone,

while trading on a real micro account with about $200 capital, sometimes the program gives me messages like

[EUR/USD:BB:S] Skipped: Total Margin 3.

Or recently

[USD/CAD:AT:S] Skipped - Margin 1 Min 3

In accordance with the information I found on this site I have reduced the margin to 5, leaving the risk at 10. With these parameters, in test the capital required il less than $100. Actually there is only 1 position open so it seems to me a little strange thing.

As a niewbie could someone help me to interpret the msg, please?

Thanks.

PS: Sorry, missing info, the scrip is Z2fx

So, a week has passed and Z1fx has not made a single trade. Not one!

I've now started it again, but I wonder, is it time to panic?

Using default parameters (margin 50, risk 10).

Hi,
this AM the $200 micro live account with the script

Z2fx,240,5,10,0

in addition to [USD/CHF:AT:S]Skipped - Margin 1 Min 3

has reported this messsage:

[EUR/USD:BB:S]Skipped:Total Margin 0

Pls consider that there were no open position prior to this message.
Does it depend on the stop loss that, in this specific situation, is too big to manage?
And so everything is ok and it needs only a bigger account?
Sorry for this silly questions.

Thanks in advance.

The "skipped" message means that the trade was not opened due to too-low margin. This is normal - you can read about it in the manual.

When you set the margin very low, you get only few trades. Higher margin allows more trades.

What margin to use if there are no trades (Z1fx) with margin = 50?

Perfect, I understand. In order to allow the program to open more positions, I will increase both the capital and the margin. Thanks a lot.

Excuse me Acidburn, just a curiosity: which setting are you using? TY

Do you get a "skipped" message or no message at all?

I try to test the same configuration on my pc and then let you know

No "skipped" messages. I only get stuff like this:

[701: 11.03. 08:02] 1.3006
[702: 11.03. 12:02] 1.3008

It went like that the whole past week, and no trades were triggered. I tried to find the exact log of the last week run and paste it here, but I don't see one in Log folder.

What I do is, start Zorro, select Z1fx, run Test, it crunches for 2 minutes, then run Trade and that's it. I didn't tamper with it, or the parameters. I just wanted to see how it trades, but after a week, I'm yet to see the first trade.

Hi Acidburn, the Zorro I've just implemented placed 5 orders about 20 minutes ago. What about yours?

Wow. Still no trades here.

So there is something fishy with my setup, after all. What am I doing wrong?

Here's the screenshot of my Zorro. 6 days without a single trade.

I would have attached an image but I have not been able to do it...

You can display an image with the options under "Switch to full reply screen".

- The account number looks like an US account - in that case the "fx" systems won't work, you need the "nfa" systems.

Wow, can it be that simple?

I opened a demo account on www.fxcm.com, as instructed. I didn't even look at the fine details (like the country), this being just demo acc, right?

Here's what I did in the meantime. After wingino reported that his Zorro placed others while mine didn't, I gave up on Z1fx. Then I started Z2fx, and hey, it took some hours, but it actually opened 2 shorts.

Next thing I'm going to do: test Z1nfa

Would it be possible for Zorro to inform the user that it's not going to trade the strategy on the US account because the strategy is not NFA compliant? I basically lost the whole week waiting for something to happen... it seems I only waited for Godot...

Thanks Jcl but I'm unable to understand why if I select "Switch to full reply screen" in this post I don't have in the "Post Options" the link "File Manager", while it is available in "Zorro Beta Test" section.
Maybe I'm doing some other error.
Thanks

Acidburn: For the trade system it's mandatory that you know if you're in the US or not. If you are no US citizen, you must NOT use the nfa systems - they are for US accounts only. But if you are in the US, you have an US account and can not use other systems but the nfa systems.

Selecting a wrong system might still open trades, but the trades are then not closed correctly. US accounts are not allowed to directly close trades. They must open opposite trades instead.

Wingio: the image must be on an external server, you can then place an image link in your post.

OK, I'm partly to blame because I just haven't been careful enough about that pesky NFA regulation. I guess I should've opened demo account on fxcm.co.uk, but at the time I didn't know it existed. Maybe you could also clarify that in the manual.

Anyway, many hours have passed since I've switched to Z1nfa, but it seems that Z1nfa is also reluctant to open trades. I'll give it a full 24 hours window, just to be on the safe side, before I declare Z1* completely broken for me.

Here's another confusing thing. When I stopped trading Z2fx, it asked me if I wanted to close trades, to which I answered yes. At that time my balance (as reported by Zorro) was 50003. Currently, I see the balance jumping between $49997 and $49998. The question is why is the balance changing if I don't have open trades? Is there any way to ascertain that I don't have any trades open?

Also from time to time I'd like to paste the textual contents of Zorro window here, but it cannot be selected. If you could make the text selectable or put a log of it somewhere it would improve communication here on forum, I guess.

When the balance is changing, you _have_ open trades.

Use the FXCM trading platform for checking your trades. If you have orphaned open trades from some past Zorro session, close them manually. Zorro can only control the trades that were opened with its current system. When you start system A, then stop it without closing trades and then start system B, the trades of system A are still open and not under Zorro control.

OK, thanks jcl!

Didn't even bother to install the FXCM platform, all I ever wanted to do is to evaluate Zorro.

OK, I got it.
Thanks

OK, opened a new account with fxcm.co.uk last week, and have just started (non-nfa) Z1fx trading. We'll see later today or maybe tomorrow if there are any trades.

24 hours have passed without a single trade. I repeat, this is an UK FXCM account, thus non-NFA. Z1fx is definitely not working here. I guess I'll wait for 1.06 in the hope that the issue gets fixed.

*dupe*

Aside from the gap caused by starting the system on a Sunday, the output looks normal - what's the problem?

If you can't wait 24 hours for getting rich, a bank robbery might be preferable to trading . Strategies don't trade all the time. They trade only when they get a trade signal. There might be no activity for weeks.

If there were a problem, you'd see an error message such as "Can't open trade".

He he, I'm certainly not trying to get rich, at least not at this time. Demo accounts are known to be problematic if you wan't to get rich.

This looks a lot like my previous run of Z1fx when it didn't get a single trade in a week. I'm aware that it's H4 timeframe and thus candles are generated slowly, but still... it's a portfolio?! I left it running undisturbed, so we'll see...

If wingino is still trading it, he probably got many trades in the meantime, if only I knew what's different in his setup.

The setup does not affect the trade signals, but the time when you start the system affects it, and also the implemented random element mentioned in the manual. So two people will not get the same trades.

With a low margin setting you'll get less trades, but the skipped trades are then displayed in the window.

For how long you think it should run without a single trade, before you get suspicious that something is actually wrong? Would a full week do?

BTW, I never saw a skipped trade message. Beside printing the current price every 4 hours, Zorro is completely silent on me. I'll let it run uninterrupted 'til the market close on Friday, no problem, but nothing will happen in the meantime, I'm pretty sure.

Acidburn, unfortunately I turned on Z1fx strategy only when I'm at my desk. Pls take into account what Jcl as already explained above: of course it is not so relevant but I also do not have at the moment open positions on Z1fx. I think it's all a result of market conditions.
As a confirmation of this you may consider that on my 2 other accounts running Z2 & Z2fx, 24/24, Zorro is not opening new positions since last week, just continuing to manage them.
At the beginning I had your same feeling, then with a little patience I verified that at the right time Zorro opens and closes positions independently. Trust me, have faith.

OK, I'll be patient. Thanks for a nice words.

You're Welcome.

I spent last week watching my nails grow, while I was waiting for the first trade on Z1fx to happen. Had to cut the nails by the end of the week without a trade.

This morning I installed brand new 1.06, unzipped history files just in case, and started the bloody thing again, and voila! Had the first trade in a matter of hours. And a valid one if I may add, shorting EURUSD. Yay! I might get rich after all.

Great news, Acidburn: unfortunately I probably had my test pc off at that time and so no trade for me on Z1Fx...

As Z1fx happily trades, I'm less and less confused. So this thread will die soon, and I'll open another one with more appropriate name.

So, just one more question before it dies (AFAIC), currently the textbox labeled Server says 'Out of sync'. Does it have anything to do with switch to daylight saving time that happened this weekend? Is that something to worry about?

I'm using fxcm.co.uk (UTC aka GMT), and Zorro is in CEST time zone (UTC + 2 currently). The FXCM server reports 16:46, the machine that is running Zorro 18:46, so everything seems OK. Why out of sync?

The only thing I tried is stopping and restarting Zorro, but it didn't change a thing.

Out of sync means that the Windows API UTC time on your PC is different to the server UTC time. If the server time is correct, maybe it's something with your PC? Can you check if the local time zone is set up correctly?

I turned on 'Automatically adjust clock for DST' and fixed one hour offset that happened as a result and it seems good now, no more "Out of sync" message.

The thing is, this is a virtual machine and the host is already adjusting the clock per DST rules, so I had that checkbox turned off. But, it confused Zorro, although the time was OK, but some calculation that depends on the timezone and/or DST status failed, obviously.

I'll see what I can do with the configuration on the host, although I somehow liked it this way (guest machine doesn't deal with time, just uses what the host provides, and host is prefectly synchronized).

Thanks for the info. Zorro uses the Windows API function "GetGmtTm" for getting the UTC time. This API function seems to be confused by the PC setting. We can't do much about it, but it's good to know. This problem should affect other programs on your PC too when they use the UTC time, not only Zorro.

Yeah, I guess it's not worth (nor fun) chasing timezone issues. Time is better spent working on algorithms and other more important stuff (like charting, to name one).

Thank you for holding my hand while I was taking baby steps with Zorro!