Hy all,

I bought the book "Blackbook of financial hacking" and of course, now I am on my way starting with Zorro.

Having a few years of trading expierience (no great success so far), working as a self-employed developer, I tried to figure out how to start (and more important proceed after starting) with Zorro.
Here is what I found out so far:

[Zorro vs. Zorro S]
1. For practising, Zorro free version is ok, but Zorro S of course is better
--> e.g. no MT4 conncetion, no nice visual trade by trade examination
--> when I start trading as a company, which I might have to do because of Olaf Scholz' brain fart of restricting the ability of subtracting losses from profit, I will have to goe with Zorro S and pay for it anyway
--> while I already have a small IT company (british Ltd. until end of year), I fear it will go that way

[Choose Broker]
2. When I open an account with Oanda, I can get a 12 Month free license of Zorro S (if deposit 4000$)
--> however, when I exceed annual profit of 30000$, I must pay (no problem with this in case) BUT I can only keep 7000 in my account, i.e. I have to withdraw every time I exceed 7000$ ??
Or does this mean I can trade up e.g. from 7000$ to 37000$ in one year (yes, not realistic of course), then say ok, I pay the license and that's it?
--> further advandage of Oanda would be free history data, which would be great if it covers last 8-10 years of cours. Currently I am at JFD and they have only 2 years (not more, not even for money)
--> BUT Oanda resides in the U.S. where CFDs are not allowed for the public, however this is working out... strange.
3. When opening an account with a different affiliate (Global Prime, ATFX) I also get the free Zorro S license, which I would actually need, because they're not directly connected, I need MT4 Plugin which is not part of free Zorro. Which means I would then be stuck with the Zorro S forever.

==> Question: are there any other brokers with the possibility of *direct* connection (no MT4 plugin)? I will then have to find out which ones allow trading as a company (retailer company of course - because I don't have the 500000 bucks to qualify as a professional)

I want to avoid the hassle of installing / using a lot of software, I want to connect to my broker directly. That MT4 plugin is a point of failure in my view.

[Choose Hardware]
1. I don't want to go with a virtual server in a cloud, as I am quite paranoid (IT business for 20 years)
2. Running Zorro on linux SUCKS, I don't want to deal with technical issues, I want to improve my trading. So no linux VM on my existing virtualization stack at home
3. What I would need is a Windows Server, or even a Windows client with server hardware, which runs 24/7:
--> has anyone experience of running a trading bot at home? Which hardware do you use? Windows Server or Client? (yes, turning off automatic update is self-explaining, but I don't trust Windows that it doesn't find other reasons to reboot)
--> I guess 4 physical cores + 16MB RAM is good, for excessive backtesting + training

[Conclusion]
==> Still not sure, which broker to choose. Of course, first I have to start practicing with the algos, but I need proper history data (I am addicted to the nasdaq). I still have doubts that Oanda in the U.S. is really the best choice for trading seriously. I am using JFD for three years now, and we became friends. They are realy "Just fair & direct" in my oppinion
==> So unfortunately, I will have to start with Zorro first. When I change my business purpose in my company and add my private capital to it, I can simply purchase a permant license. This would mean, opening a demo account on Oanda, in order to get the historical data
==> I will have to start on my old Windows notebook or with a Windows VM on my Intel i7 linux notebook

****
So don't get me wrong, I don't want everything for nothing, but I am asking myself how to start the best way, so that I can expand quickly if it works.
If anyone has corrections, additions, thoughts on this lengthy post (sorry for that, first one), please let me know.

Cheers