Z8 Capital slider

Posted By: jmb

Z8 Capital slider - 07/09/17 22:11

With apologies for what I fear is a dumb question, I regret I'm not understanding the proper usage of the "Capital" slider in Z8.

The online manual states:

Quote:

Set the Capital slider to the total margin you want to invest.

...and:

Quote:

Determines the total leveraged capital to be invested, i.e. the sum of the maintenance margin of the open positions. While the portfolio composition changes every month, the total invested margin remains constant and can be set up with this slider. Keep this value well below the cash on the account.

On an IB account, let's say I have $4500 currently placed in trades and $500 in cash. The IB account is a standard "cash" account with a "Maintenance margin" requirement of zero.

Where should I set the slider?

Posted By: jcl

Re: Z8 Capital slider - 07/13/17 15:28

The default Z8 asset settings are for a margin account, not for a cash account. I would edit the AssetsZ8.csv and change the leverage everywhere to 1, since you have no leverage. After that, set the slider to the capital you want to invest.

Without editing AssetsZ8.csv, set the slider to half of the capital you want to invest, since the default leverage is 2. So with $5000 on the account, set the slider to 2250 when you want to invest 4500. The cash account won't give you a margin call (I hope), so a wrong slider setting is not fatal.

Posted By: jmb

Re: Z8 Capital slider - 07/14/17 13:33

Thank you jcl. Much appreciated as always. I might have missed this information in the manual, but if not, I hope you won't mind if I suggest adding this to it.

Thanks again.

Posted By: jmb

Re: Z8 Capital slider - 07/27/17 20:13

JCL - could you help me out again, please?

I still don't seem to have a proper handle on the Z8 Capital slider.

As before, the account is an IB nil margin, cash only account. AssetsZ8.csv is edited with leverage everywhere set to 1.

Trade run method 1:
- No positions open, cash only in the account
- USD cash on IB = $4238.42
- Capital slider on Z8 = 4238
= Z8 Result: Total volume $3367

Only about 80% of the cash available would be invested if I clicked "yes".

Trade run method 2:
- As method 1, but Capital slider = 5298 (ie. 25% above cash on IB)
= Z8 Result: Total volume $4118

It seems that only by doing method 2 can I get 100% of the available cash invested.

What am I doing wrong? Is my assumption that Z8 should invest all the cash up to the slider set amount wrong?

Thanks again, and apologies for what is probably a dumb question.