Blame the manual

Hey jcl,

I just got started learning about automated trading. I used 3dgs and because it shares the same forum I got interested about it and started reading the manual. I think I found some mistakes in the manual and wanted to post them here(didn't know where else )

In "Zorro and the Brokers" -> "Observing your VPS trade status" -> last point: "the public IP address of your server - for instance, bei entering 98.765.43.12\Z12.htm in your browser's address field." -> "bei" should be "by"

In "Workshop 4" -> After "We're now going to analyze the code line by line" you cite the code twice, but with other values than in the initial code. "vars Trend = series(LowPass(Price,1000));" should be "vars Trend = series(LowPass(Price,500));"

Otherwise a really nice manual! Really easy to understand even for people that never had something to do with trading(like me).

I'm currently playing around with the basics, hopefully I can develop some own strategies on my own in the near future

kind regards,

Alain

P.S: should we all continue posting into this thread when finding other mistakes or will you create a new Forum like you did for the 3dgs community?

Thanks! Yes, please continue to post any mistakes that you find.

Please proofread this page http://zorro-trader.com/manual/en/stop.htm

It says

The emphasized fragments are opposite to statements of those that appear here and here.

How so?

For one thing,
You say "An entry limit buys when the price is at or worse than the limit"
They say "Limit Entry orders ... enter the market at a more favorable price."

Ah, I see. "Worse" means that the price went down when your trade needs it to rise. The other website describes the same price move as "favorable" because it happened when the trade was not yet entered. Both is not wrong, but indeed confusing and I'll try to make this more clear in the manual.

Hi jcl. OK, I'll throw in a couple of minor things...

On the Indicators page, TrueRange is out of alphabetical order. Also, the link to TrueRange in ATR seems to link to the description, not the header.

On the Trading page, the Progress Bar is described as "The left segment of the Progress Bar indicates the closed profit of the strategy since starting it, the right segment indicates the total profit or loss of all open trades (including phantom trades). When the right segment is green, your trades are in the profit zone; when the left segment is green, your account is in the profit zone. Otherwise the segment is red." A recent Demo strategy did 1 trade for $.64 profit. With that 1 trade closed and no open trades, the Progress Bar was left ~2/3 green and right ~1/3 red. Where did the red come from? With no open trades, shouldn't the right side have been 0, therefore non-existent, and hence the whole bar green?

Thanks.

Re: Entry
Some illustrations would really help here. There are at least 4 scenarios.
Entry is negative, next bar open is above |Entry|.
Entry is negative, next bar open is below |Entry|.
Entry is positive, next bar open is above |Entry|.
Entry is positive, next bar open is below |Entry|.

I have tried making zooming in to my plot. I have tried poring through the log. In complex cases, I have a hard time understanding what is happening, especially since in practice only entered trades are plotted. Missed entries, irrelevant stops, etc., are not plotted. Can you add visualizations at some level?

Hi jcl. How about an update of the Testing page to reflect the current result window display: <nnn> <mmm> <www>/<lll>. What are the <nnn> and <mmm>?

It's the current balance and the value of the open trades - that was indeed missing in the manual.

Not sure if it is a mistake but in the manual it says for the DTREE method "The signals should be in the -100..100 range for best precision." , my question is, shouldn't it be the same for PERCEPTRON -and PATTERN maybe?- because according to what I read about neural networks, inputs should be normalized.

PERCEPTRON and PATTERN do not need normalized data. The perceptron is solved with a normal equation, not with gradient descent. Neural networks that use gradient descent or similar backprop algorithms would indeed require normalized, balanced data.

Thank you for carefully annotating many indicators with the warning, "The function internally creates series and thus must be called in a fixed order in the script." This helps me avoid Error 041: Inconsistent series calls.

Here are a few series-creating indicators/transformations which lack this annotation.

ZMA
RVI

Hurst.

Thanks! Will be corrected.

So, which is it? Is TrailLock supposed to be a percentage [0,100] or a fraction [0,1]?

Hi GPEngine. From my experience so far, a percentage.

HTH.

Probably the "1" was misguiding, but any low number greater than zero would do here.

Thanks jcl. This has spawned some other thoughts:

I gather, then, that 1 isn't specifically called out in the code - it's just that 1% (or other small %) of the profit normally calculates close enough to 0 that the result is the stop being at entry?

Is this also taking into account Spread, etc.? I.e., in the example of 10 pips, that's 10 pips after costs, yes? And the TrailLock stop is placed at entry+costs+8pips?

Also, is TrailLock a one-time thing or is it re-evaluated at every tick/bar? In the example, if profit subsequently increased to 20 pips, would the TrailLock stop be moved up to 16 pips?

Thanks.

P.S. - Does it work for TrailLock >100? Can I "lock" >100% of my profit?!

Yes, it's 1% in the example, and spread is taken into account. Slippage not, as it is determined only in hindsight. TrailLock is re-evaluated at every tick, like all exit parameters.

As to locking more than 100% profit, well it is not easy, but we're working on it .

http://www.zorro-trader.com/manual/en/rbridge.htm:

Rd("rout",vecOut,5); // read it back

Wouldn't it mean Rv instead of Rd?

The manual's Data Export / Import page says Assets.csv "is updated on every connection to the broker with the current parameters of all assets contained in the script". However, it appears Assets.csv is in fact not updated on connection to the broker, but rather when the script ends. For example, if you Trade a script, Assets.csv appears to be updated only when you Stop.

Thanks, the Rd was indeed wrong and I'll also make the updating more clear.

Hi jcl. This is not the manual per se, but the Download page: The 2002-2008 History is needed for Z7, at least as of 1.44.

Hi jcl. The COMMA flag is missing from the Mode flags page.

Not missing, but removed since it's a Zorro.ini parameter.

Then The Z Systems page should be updated to include it & the link on the Data Export / Import page should be updated.

The function dow states the days of the week are like that
Day of week of the given bar, MONDAY (1), TUESDAY (2) ... SUNDAY (7).

But actually the weeks starts with
SUNDAY(1), MONDAY(2)....

This was in fact not a wrong manual, but a wrong time zone - the same bug that you already had in the dayHigh calculation. It is supposedly fixed in the latest Zorro 1.50.4.

that is correct now, thank you.

Dear Zorro Team,

Please note that in the online manual the link to "putvar, getvar" is broken. It is even difficult to "guess" it.

Thank you

fs.

Thanks, this will be fixed.

also broken :
http://www.zorro-trader.com/manual/en/cdf.htm
http://www.zorro-trader.com/manual/en/window.htm

jcl, would it be a hard think for you to add a search function for the manual, I think a very simple google search should do it.

https://cse.google.com/cse/create/new

Workaround: if you click on the help-button of your Zorro the manual opens as a searchable windows help file.

Use normally your own manual. The online manual is more intended for preview and beta testers. It changes often and the correctness of links is not guaranteed. Still, please post if you find a missing page that was not yet uploaded or updated.

In the offline version the Volatility function is described as taking 3 arguments while its definition is actually:

(Zorro 1.51)

Thanks. This was due to options implementation and will be corrected for the release.

Hi jcl,

Have Tested 1.50 Z3 with default 50/10 to verify results vs. manual in preparation for implementing this weekend & have noticed a couple of discrepancies between the manual and my Test:

Avg trade duration: Manual says 2 weeks; my Test says 7 days = 1 week.

Profit factor: Manual says ~1.1%; my Test says 1.75.

All the other values seem to match OK.

Regards.