Unfortunately not. I've just noticed this too - executable scripts run only once in test mode. Afterwards you must change the strategy and then change back. This will be fixed in the next Zorro version.

A temporary solution would be temporarily renaming your key.dta file in the Zorro folder for testing. The problem only affects Zorro S.

Second thought is to find out what is the maximum "productive" capital one can have in the account. In other words, since the margin is restricted to 100 (in Zorro 1.20 S, Z5) there is an upper limit in terms of capital that will actually will be used for trading in the account. (Am I right here? or apart from the amount of lots, the number of trades is sensitive to the capital in the account if keeps on increasing?)

Let's try to find out the upper limit of capital taking as granted that only the number of lots increase rather than the number of trades. And let's take the rule of SQR to increase the margin you give somewhere. Let's also take as base line a 3000 capital and 50 of margin as it is as default in the backtests.

Supose one makes a profit of 3000 and now the account has grown to 6000. Applying the rule of SQR to find out what new margin I have to increase instead of blindly multiply by 2:

6000 = 3000 x (1 + 3000/3000) = 3000 x (2)

SQR (2) = 1,41, so instead of multiply by 2, that is, instead of increasing the margin from 50 to 100, I shall increase the margin to:

50 x 1,41 = 70 aprox.

So, for a profit of 100% from 3000 to 6000, the margin increase goes to 70 from 50.

Applying the same rule, one can deduce that the maximum productive capital for a margin of 100 is 12.000. To have more capital than this in the account doesn't make any sense and better get a new license and open a new account. Am I right with this logic?

There is also a third though when comparing with version 1.16. There, in the backtests for a capital of around 6000 was giving an income of around 1000 per month with 100 of margin. In version 1.20, you can see that now the capital necessary to use 100 as margin has gone up to 12.000. Or can we apply the same rule as 1.16 and for a capital of 6000 apply margin 100?

There is no capital limit for Zorro S; you can set the maximum margin in the .ini file.

Although Z4 and Z5 are special strategies, the square root rule does still apply because there is no hard limit for the upper border of the EUR/USD rate. So your calculation is correct.

The backtests determine the initial capital only. The longer you traded and the more profit you made, the higher is the likeliness of a drawdown that exceeds the capital determined in the backtest - therefore the square root rule.

Then, the increase the margin the sooner the better accompanying the increase of capital because less time trading means less chances that the drawdown exceeds the capital determined in the backtest. In this way, profit may be mounting sooner before it reaches the situation of a strong drawdown. Does it make sense?

By the way, where is the .ini file? I have been looking in Zorro folder but no success till now. Sorry about this... I am completely new.

That drawdown increases in time is just a statistical phenomena. You can of course get in a very deep drawdown right after the start of strategy, and especially so if you apply too high risk.



Look for it in the Strategy folder.

Thank you acidburn. I have been looking into the Strategy Folder but there I can only find .c files.

Then I see only 2 possibilities:

- Zorro S keeps it in another folder?
- you have been bitten by Windows UAC, and Z.ini somehow ended in your shadow directory?

Is the following the content of the Z.ini file?

NFA = 0
FXOnly = 0
MMax = 100
Phantom = 0
Comma = 0
Mute = 0
Weekend = 2
Verbose = 2
BrokerPatch = 0
Preload = 0

It comes as Z file where it just says configuration. Does MMax refers to the slide responsible for the Margin?

Yes, that's Z.ini. About MMax, you should probably consult the manual.

Thank you, Aciburn. I wonder why the .ini gets erased when installing it in my VPS.

Another issue you may help is regarding the re-test. Supose you write some script which gives some positive results and you want to make a few changes and re-test it. What happens to me is that usually the re-test gives as result the message "backtest... " but it does not really compile and execute it. However, from time to time it does it. Do you know what to do so that every time one click the "Test" button it really compiles and gives a result?