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Zorro-trader.com

GlennR

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I found this automated trader program on babypips.com . I searched here, but didn't get anything. Does anybody know about it, good or bad?

It offers a free "restricted" program, which limits you to $7000 in your brokerage account and also limits your annual profit to $30K. You can pay about $450 for an unrestricted version.

It comes with 2 strategies (EAs) for learning, but you are expected to learn to program your own strategies, which uses Lite-C programming language. They offer a compete tutorial that appears very well written for free. Say it takes 8 days. They said you have to learn to make your own strategies because nobody really offers profitable ones for sale, for the obvious reason. Also it works with MQ4.

I'm a total newbie, but I can't see the "scam" to this.

I have downloaded Zorro 1.10 and am researching good brokers.... Looks like that might take more work than learning Lite-C. ;) (any good comparison lists you can recommend?)
 
Interesting website.

My recommendation - give it a try on a demo account. If it looks reasonable, try a small live account. Don't even think of paying for unrestricted unless it makes you enough money to pay for the unrestricted version first. That pretty much makes it scam proof.

Like any ea, it may not exactly be crash proof. Even it it makes you a nice pile of money each day, keep an eye on it.
 
I'm glad to hear you say it looks "interesting". I was afraid that there might be something fishy about it, but didn't have the experience to know what they're trying to pull.

The site appears legitimate, and since they are coming into the trading bot from a game programming background & perspective this isn't their primary income source. It seems like the programming aspect of the trading bot is a unique challenge that they enjoy. Offering it for as a free, but lightly restricted form, seems like a smart way to get people to try it. If it works the users will help develop it & promote it, and also buy the unrestricted version.

It requires the user to spend a little time learning Lite-C for coding it, but as you said it will need to be adjusted periodically to stay successful. I like the AI (artificial intelligence) feature, which I believe means that it can "learn".

So, now I'll get back to shopping for a broker.

thanks,
 
I just opened a demo account and began testing Zorro. It was simple and now I can watch it trade as I try to learn about Forex charts & strategies.

It was simple to set up.

I just started learning to program in Lite-C, and that doesn't seem too difficult.

Zorro bought 2 pairs and traded them all day Friday, then closed them out for the weekend. It was at a slight loss, but they say that's normal to see at first while the bot is learning.

I'm running the Z2fna strategy on this demo and I plan to test the Z1fna on another demo to see how it does. Eventually, after I learn about trading strategies & trading I will develop my own strategies and test them.

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I hope others will try Zorro too, so we can share what we learn. Please post here if you decide to give it a try.
 
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See if there's a setting to close before weekends. The frequency and size of weekend gaps has been growing recently.
 
Yes, the 2 strategies (EAs) that are included are programmed to close before weekends.

I'd set one of them up trading on a demo account and was excitedly watching it work (and trying to understand all of the "stuff" on the page with the chart & changing numbers...). Friday afternoon it closed down for the weekend and all my excitement came to a halt. :(

Over the weekend I read a bit more and decided to open another demo account to test the other strategy. When I set it up I noticed a "test" tab and clicked it. The program began scrolling through historic data for 10-15 minutes, or longer. Then I hit the "trade" tab to begin the demo.

I realized that I didn't "test" the first demo before beginning it. So, I closed the trades and tested it too. It had closed at a loss of $40 on Friday, using the $50K play money. I'm not sure how much it was trading with, maybe $250, plus some margin. I'm trying to figure that "stuff" out...:confused:

I'm not sure why it uses any margin when there's still $49,000+ in the trading account. This is all new to me.

I'm supposed to learn Lite-C for programming unique EAs (strategies), which are more profitable than the ones included as "base EAs" that are intended just to get newbies up and running. There are a few "slider bars" for adjusting the parameters for the "period", "margin", "risk", & "panic". Just playing with them on the EAs that are included should yield quite different results. I guess I will open another demo account for testing their effects. (I can already see the need for an extra computer, just to help keep the different demo tests separate, if only for my little head! (I think each Bot uses about 0.6 gigs of RAM, and the computer has to stay turned on continuously.)
 
I'm interested, just short on time. I'm sure there are some others quietly watching (and who should ALSO post that they are interested - hint, hint).
 
Pharaoh,
I've been playing with Zorro trying to figure it out. I have never traded Forex nor done any computer programming, so it's a bit of a challenge for me. I have been reading as much Forex info as I can, trying to understand the lingo, strategies, charts, etc. and I have downloaded Zorro and am running a demo trading account on FXCM with one of the programs that are included to get beginners up & running before they learn Lite-C to program their own scripts.

There are 4 slider bars on the Zorro control panel, but you can only play with 2 of them, "Margin" & "Risk". The "Period" slider is locked at the 4 hour time frame, I'm not sure why. The "Panic" slider is only used if something goes wrong and you want to stop out (I "think" that's what the manual said. Anyway, I know that it said to just leave it set at the default setting of "0".

I played with the Margin & Risk sliders and ran tests (I think they are back-tests) and sort of figured out what they did, then I stumbled across the explanations for the sliders and got a better understanding. When you play with the Margin slider it allows the program to use higher or lower percentages of margin. If you set it low, like at 5, it will safely let you begin trading with under $160 in your trading account, without getting in trouble with a margin call. After you set the sliders and press "test" it runs through a bunch of history info for a long time, maybe 20+ minutes. Then it give you a mini report on the control panel, that says the annual rate of return, the pips gained/lost, and the amount of capital necessary to trade at that setting. If you set the Margin slider at 100 (max) the results say you need about $3000 in capital. I was surprised that the maximum annual rate of return wasn't the highest when you choose the highest slider settings for the Margin & the Risk. It has something to do with the ratios...

My demo account has only be running about 3 or 4 days. I had one running earlier, but after learning more I realized that I should change some settings and start over. Zorro has been trading some (it seems to prefer "shorts") and is ahead about $50. It had 3 different "pairs" today. (I'm placing quotes around my Forex vocab words. ;) ) The Zorro manual said to expect to lose a little money at first, but I don't think my account has been down below the $50K starting point.

The free version of Zorro doesn't allow you to have over $7,000 in your live account, but the demo account automatically gives you $50K. I think the program is geared to work with up to $7,000 and ignores the extra.

There are a few things you can't do with the free version that you can with the paid "Zorro S" version. I'm sure there's a setting to operate with larger amounts of capital. It will also let you run multiple accounts at the same time, and it will let you run both of the included strategies "Z1 & Z2" combined. I can see how it would be useful to be able to run multiple demo accounts at the same time so you can forward-test different strategies at the same time.

I figure I will watch the demo for a while and if it looks good I'll open a small account and try it live. If it makes money I will increase the margin until it reaches the limit of the free version, and then I'll pay for the "S" version. By then I should be able to learn to program scripts, and have a decent understanding about what parameters to choose.

Oh, I forgot. The "S" version allows you to "train" the program. I don't think the free version does, or at least it doesn't on the demo with Z1 or Z2. Maybe it will let you train if you make your own program, or maybe it has something to do with this being a demo run. I don't know, and I hate to ask so many newbie questions on their forum until I'm not quite so "new"....

If this turns out to be a waste of time I'll let you all know. If it turns out to be great I'll "try" to remember to let you all know!! :)
 
I always thought that PANIC should be a BIG RED BUTTON instead of a slider. If I panic, I usually want to close everything, not discuss with my EA that moderately panicked means close certain trades and slightly panicked means close other trades.
 
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