Have you made money?

Hello,
I am Malice, you can call me Malcolm if you like.

I don't want to known your system or your actual gains, I just want to know est. gains and if you made money with this Zorro.

Truth be told, I have little money to play with, so I can not afford fish tales.

Edit - Post here if you are making money, please ?!
Thank you
Mal

lol k

Malcolm, I'm not sure people are going to be as forthcoming as you might wish regarding their trading results. Each to their own I guess. Personally, I don't trade the Z systems, but there are a number of users here who share their Z system results via myfxbook.

I can't comment on returns from trading the Z systems, but I can say that if you are interested in developing and trading your own systems, then Zorro is exceptional value for money. I don't think that a more user-friendly development platform with Zorro's level of robustness exists on the market.

I have made money and lost money in the past trading systems I developed with Zorro. The losing was due to my skill as a developer and trader, not due to any failure of Zorro. I am currently trading three of my own systems that I developed with Zorro. One is down 10% since inception back in September, the other two are up 18% and 16% respectively over roughly the same period. Of course, this doesn't tell the whole story - you would need to consider drawdown, time in market, and anything else that is relevant to your investment needs - but I am telling you that it is possible to make money with Zorro.

I would also add that what I have learned over the last year while using Zorro is worth many times the price I paid for the software.

It looks like you're a lite-C user - it would be great to have you contributing to the Zorro forum too.

Treading water here.

My Z3 is up fractionally since inception in March (+1.07%). My Z12 is up fractionally since inception August 2014 (+0.22%).

I'm up about 680% in 18 months on z systems.

Is that an outlier result for these systems?

I know 3 other people running Zorro. 2 are using the same broker as me, trading through MT4, one has seen 100% return since about May, the other 200% since about April.

The other person I know is using FXCM and the API plugin, and their account is slightly down after a year or so, however their account has been offline during this latest upswing. They might be changing broker before trading again.

Hope this helps.

Thirstywolf

It was a up and down but overall I'm up 200% in 24 months.

But its strange that people have so different results with the same systems.

Petra and Thirstywolf, which brokers are you trading with?

Petra's comment & boatman's question are quite relevant to the OP, and a few others too. Such as what account(s) type(s) at the broker, which systems (Z<n> and/or own), which were traded using what Capital & Margin settings over what time periods, Real vs. Demo, etc. Without a lot of detail the answers are pretty meaningless if not downright dangerous...

Zorro's now been around long enough that a compendium of this might be useful. But it would be unaudited/unverified, so maybe not...

IC Markets - True ECN Account. The results I have mentioned are only for the Z strategies, not my own, using recommended settings and almost always more capital than suggested.

I agree with you Ddlv. Some critical thinking is required.

Another user on this forum suggested to me that the difference between my results and that of others may be orphaned trades, but that is probably only true for others using MT4. I have manually closed out at least hundreds of orphaned trades over the last 18 months. If others are not catching orphaned trades and letting them hit zorro's hard stops, that would be a huge hit on the account. Anyone else would be using FXCM. A brief look into their spreads and slippage should tell you everything you need to know there.

Thirstywolf

Thirstywolf, thanks for the information. Very interesting what you wrote about orphaned trades.

I trade Oanda. Had not much problems with orphans yet.

@Petra, Oanda is a DD broker, isn't it? Has that caused any problems/concerns?

@Thirstywolf, to be sure I'm reading you correctly, hundreds of orphaned trades over 18 months works out to 10-20 per month or 2-5 orphaned trades per week?

Thanks.

What is the definition of an orphaned trade in this case?

I've been running Z1 with the default parameters since Sept 2014. At the moment, I'm up about 23 % (started with 2250 USD, currently at 2909 USD). The system appeared to be in a range centered around 2500 USD - 2600 USD for most of 2015, but may be breaking out.

DDlv, Yes, sometimes up to 4 or 5 orphaned trades in one day. I would say at its worst about 30% of trades were orphaned. Interestingly my broker sent out an email about upgrades they were doing to their MT4 support infrastructure to overcome network outages. Since the upgrades, which was about a month ago, I have had 1 orphaned trade (today). From probably 5 per week to 1 per month overnight. I had planned to change to IB with the new API before that, but now I will stick with them.

RTG, when I say orphaned trades, I am referring to a trade that is opened in MT4 by zorro, but somehow MT4 and zorro have different trade numbers for it, and zorro immediately loses control over the trade. If you don't catch it early by comparing your trade numbers, later down the track you get the message from zorro stating "cannot close this trade" etc.

Hope this helps

Thirstywolf

Thirstywolf, which Z-strategies are you running?

When Zorro and MT4 get out of sync, how do you get them into sync again. You say you close the trades manually in MT4 but how are the Z-strategies handled? Do you somehow have to reset, restart the Zorro Strategy?

I am all new to Zorro.

)) Repled

Hi Repled.

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I've been on holidays. I don't do anything to re-sync zorro and MT4 other than making sure I have no orphaned trades in MT4. Eventually if Zorro can't control a trade it stops trying. All of my comments above refer to the Z strategies, not my own strategies. No resetting Z strategies required. I am currently running Z12, Z7 and Z3.

I have still had only 1 orphaned trade since the IC Markets fix, so for me the orphaned trade situation seems to be mostly resolved.

Thanks

Thirsty