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!!