Hi DdlV

I'm happy to provide anything you think will be useful. I've included a zip file with two spreadsheets. One has all trades through MT4, which is harder to differentiate strategy. The other is the trades file from zorro, but seems to only go back to May, but guess it covers the bulk of trades.

After my 2nd deposit, which was fairly quick, I turned the margin up to be a bit aggressive, using $100 margin for each strategy with about 9-10k account balance. I stopped Z5 about 2 weeks ago, and think I scaled back Z3 to $75 around the same time. Only increased Z12 in last couple of days to $150.

I have not changed any other settings in the account. Have had a few instances where I have had to manually close out all my trades when Zorro has failed to resume trades, but mostly earlier on.

Let me know if there are any other specific files that you would have helpful or anything else.

Thanks Thirstywolf!

Let me say what I think I read/see, & you can correct where I go astray.

Zorro's Test facility allows determination of the maximum Margin setting at which it's "safe" to run a strategy with the given Capital. (There are other threads that try to talk about what exactly "safe" means... )

You're setting Margin higher than this "safe" value. This can give increased returns (as you've experienced! ) when the market goes the right way, but with higher risk. If the market went the other way, the increased Margin = more risk than the account can handle = margin call.

I gather that you're managing that increased risk by watching Zorro very closely, and intending to exit earlier than Zorro would if things go too bad too fast?

Or do you feel that the risk is overstated and it's OK to be aggressive with the Margin slider?

How are you determining what Margin values to use?

Thanks!

I used more aggressive margin settings initially, but I would say overall I have used much lower margin than most users, simply because I had not increased my margin in a long time, while my account was accumulating profit. So I don't think margin is the key for anyone, unless they are far too aggressively margined.

Thanks again Thirstywolf!

I'm still struggling to understand, so please bear with me...

Re. Margin, how are you choosing the value(s) to use? Using Zorro's Test? Some other calculation/heuristic? Or simply "gut feel"?

Re. the key, if it's not Margin, I assume you mean the choice of broker as mentioned above? From the closed trades, IC Markets takes 21% of your profit - is that way lower than other brokers you've experienced? Or are they better for other reasons?

Thanks.

I am using the method suggested by the manual, more or less, or at least that is my primary reference, except I am not very active in updating it.

I don't know what the "key" is. If I were trying to figure it out, I would compare my trades with the trades from an underporfming account to see if there are any discrepancies. I would try to understand those first. From comparing trades I am assuming any major differences in terms of brokerage, slippage, spreads, swaps etc will come to light in reviewing the trades.

Thanks Thirstywolf!

Actually, I'm trying to look at it from the Zorro perspective as I understand it: Statistics-based and Tested results to show that a strategy and the settings one uses to drive it will not only perform well in good-fortune market times, but also survive in bad-fortune markets. From this perspective focusing on comparing a list of trades from a relatively short so-so to good time isn't particularly useful and may in fact be disastrously misleading.

The files that you uploaded are obviously very concrete, but the what's and why's of how you got to those results are quite nebulous. That's OK! I don't expect you to reveal all your secrets. But that leaves too big a gap to determine how you're opening up the throttle while managing to keep risk in check...

So, I'll just congratulate you again on your good fortune (and $10k out!) and wish you the luck that it continues!

Thanks.

Didnt know where to put this really. But, for fun, im recommending you to watch the 2 episodes of traders millions by the minute, on youtube.

Yea, watched this on Zerohedge today. Not bad.