Looking for Mentor to get started

Posted By: Sling2

Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/08/17 05:10

Hi
I'm new to Zorro and I am struggling to get started. I guess I just need some direction on where to find the relevant info.
I have installed 1.58, gone through the tutorials and opened an Oanda V20 demo account. This is where I got stuck: I tried to use some of the existing scripts, no luck. Zorro logs in fine but I keep on getting Error 053: EUR/USD unavailable at this time. I cannot get past this.
Any suggestions on how to get Zorro to talk to Oanda successfully?
Any guidance would be appreciated.
Posted By: jrath

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/13/17 01:44

It is a common error. Oanda is working well for me now in demo mode. I once got the same result. I think I just waited a bit and tried at another time. Sometimes the broker really can be un-available. Another thing is to download as much history from the Zorro website as possible and save it to the history folder. This helps Z run properly.
Posted By: Sling2

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/13/17 05:53

Thanks jrath.
After your message I basically set up the entire Oanda accoutn again and voila! it worked. Thanks that got me back into this. I was about start looking for a new dev environment.
Thanks for the help.

Eventually I want to develop my own strategies. I have gone through the tutorials. What would you suggest I start with next?
Posted By: jrath

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/15/17 01:12

Gr8 I am glad you got it working. As for next steps I think you might want to run one of the Z strategies in demo for a while. It takes a lot of stamina and patience to keep a system running long term in my view. You'll want to watch it and check the trades and get used to monitoring it each day. This way you can see if this is for you. After that yes the workshops - get a system going based on them and start tweakingoptimizing it.

Hope this helps.

J
Posted By: Sling2

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/15/17 07:02

I started some manual trading on a demo account. Just to get an idea of how things work (using the TradeTest script). Seems to work ok. One thing I noticed is that the price that Zorro shows in the logs (and window) is different to the price quoted on the Oanda web client. Why is that? I would assume that they are the same?

I'll have a look at the Z strategies and start one of them.

In the meantime I think I will start to get more familiar with the C-lite tools. One of the things I noticed is that the graph outputs in the demos are only images rather than intelligent graphs that you can actually interrogate (like in MT4). Is there any other way of visualizing the trades / prices/ etc?
Posted By: jrath

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/15/17 10:51

Gr8. On prices no they should be the same. You would need to let me know exactly what you are looking at for me to understand. Keep in mind in addition to market level Zorro is showing traded level, stops, trails etc. These are all dif to the current market level.

On the GUI side Zorro is um-ashamedly minimalistic. They are leaving the GUI up to other packages that exist like you say MT4 (yuck!). Actually what I am currently personally working on is using R to visualize/chart the Zorro data files in a better way. I've made good progress but it is summer time - so project only moves on rainy days wink

FYI I'll be offline this weekend but back at it Monday.
Posted By: Sling2

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/15/17 12:42

Hi
I was looking at the log file in Zorro and compare it to the 1 minute candle values in the web client:
O:1.11631
H:1.11659
L:1.11625
C:1.11659

[Thu 17-06-15 11:49] 100 -0 +0 1.1167/1.11681.1165/1.1166

Does this make sense?

I have not looked at R yet. One step at the time. Why don't you use some available graphing tools? What format is the data that you are displaying in R?

We have a public holiday tomorrow, I will only be back online on Monday as well.
Posted By: jrath

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/15/17 22:02

Those figures look fine to me I can't spot any obvious problem. I have similar Figures in my Z. Remember Zorro uses 4h bars by default not 1m candles. Maybe that's it.

On the charting side I have used pretty much everything over the years. FXCM Trader was the best. But Zorro uses R so I learn it to complete the circle. Its widely used on other trading blogs as a research tool.

J
Posted By: Sling2

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/19/17 05:11

Hi
Thanks, I didn't know that Zorro uses 4h bars by default. I'll look into that.

I have spent a bit of time over the weekend to plan what I need to do / learn of the next few weeks. In order to investigate or develop my own strategies I need a few skills and tools in place:
1) Learn the C-lite development environment better (the tutorial is a start but not really sufficient)
2) Build a framework that allows me to plug in my strategy (some library to analyze conditions, open and close trades, manage funds, report results along the way and visualize them)
3) Research and build strategies

Does this sound about right? Am I missing things?

I guess along the way I will pick up new ideas, skills, knowledge of the Zorro system and ways to do things. Some of the items I am expecting to create might exist already and others might need to be developed.
Posted By: GreenBoat

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/19/17 08:22

Hi, I have a bit different question which came to my mind when I was reading your topic and I think it's better to add it here, than to create another topic. I hope you don't mind. It's a bit philosophical. Maybe some experienced trader can add his/her thoughts.

I was thinking about trading the other day and I was wondering if it really works like this, when one want to have success with trading. It's hard to say what works, because trading field is fool of misleading information.

I mean does it really work like this, that if you do the right things and "work hard", your success is inevitable?

Actually it would make sense, because in other fields, that's how it works.

But if it really works like this, wouldn't there be more people doing trading? Trading is not that popular, at least not in Europe. But maybe that's because "success" means different thing. It's actually very hard to make some significant amount of money without managing other people's money. And without making money, trading isn't that fun really. If your job is programming, I can imagine that it's more fun to program games or apps then trading codes. Well, it depends I guess.

So I would like to ask, does it really works like this, that if you dedicate your time and work on it, you will find profitable strategies and start making money? Or it's more about luck and some people dedicate their time and even though they are smart, they don't make money?

And the second question is, isn't making money in trading mostly about other people's money? So the plan for success, about Sling2 is asking, should be far more complex then just "make the code"?
Posted By: Sling2

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/19/17 10:59

Hi GreenBoat
I can answer some of your questions from my point of view and what I hope to achieve:
There is no doubt that trading a bit like gambling and there is a lot of randomness involved. The aim of building a strategy is to interpret the data and remove a bit of the randomness and make a better call than the next guy, then you are able to make money. Remember that trading is literally buying and selling whether it is gold, shares or a currency. If nobody sells at a certain price you won't be able to buy.

To answer your 'working hard at it' question: I suspect / hope that you are right. The more you are analyzing data, looking at it, the more experience you will build up and the better your judgements should get. I think the trick is that you will need a bit of luck and some analytical skill / talent to make sense out of the information. Remember that there are some external influences such as political, economical , etc influences as well.

Personally I am looking at creating the strategy as a challenge. I have done a lot of programming in the past and I don't really enjoy that part but I really enjoy analyzing data to see what is hiding in it. Hence I am looking at an environment where I do not have to write thousands of lines of code but rather focus on the strategy. MT4 for example requires me to write huge amounts of very technical code in order to analyze the data. In Zorro (or in R) a lot of that is done already and I can just use these routines like a set of tools. (I hope that I am right here otherwise I need to find another environment. wink )
Posted By: GreenBoat

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/19/17 13:38

So you do have a plan, what to do next. I mean when you finish the code of your strategy, you are going to trade with your own money and that's it. Other option might be to manage other people's money or for example start working for a hedge fund or something like that. One option might be to write programs per order for other people, something like Zorro developers do, but on a smaller scale.

I know this is not the right place to be too detailed about your money plan, so we can speak only theoretically.

The question is if finding the strategy is really possible "just like that". So far I found few strategies, but all of them work only sometimes. It looks that the problem is more about when to use the strategy, then what the strategy exactly looks like.

Or I am missing something. There are probably some "magic" strategies out there, but obviously those are not public. Would be nice to know what is the key to find some strategy like that. Is it about trying many different things and finding something by accident? Or is it about knowing the markets and creative mind? It's actually the key question for your learning process, which is the question of yours. What is the best way to find a strategy...
Posted By: jrath

Re: Looking for Mentor to get started - 06/22/17 01:38

I have read what is written here and I wanted to say there a lot of good interesting points. I can’t respond to them all do them all justice. Let me say two things.
First this Zorro thing is a special resource: the manual is incredibly comprehensive on how to write a full featured trading system yourself. I think the sample strategies and published expected returns are trying to answer the first question you ask. They are saying: yes it is possible - here you go - here is a trading system/strategy that works - here is a complete how-to guide on how to write one – now go do it. To believe what they claim or not is up to you though.
Second ‘what is the best way to find a strategy’? Well how did Zorro find their strategies. In the manual they mention a book by David Elhers. I’ve not read it but a lot of these functions they use like Lowpass and Fisher etc come from the book. My guess is the strategies are outlined in there too. So they read his book, implemented the strategies in Lite-c, they worked out the strategy parameters through ML/Optimization and there you go. This is quite common in Physical sciences. Academics publish research papers and practitioners implement them. So to get strategies you have to read – papers – blogs - books etc. I’ve seen lots of good lists of resources published so I won’t list them. ‘Trading System and Methods by Kaufman’ is 1200 page tomb I’ve read and heard called the bible of strategies.
I would say I have read a trading paper a day or a book a week for 4 straight years – and yes I prefer this to video games! J
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