To me it seems like if I would run two instances of the free zorro running a Z1 and on the other one a Z2 on the same assets would do the trick to earn enough to get myself a Zorro S. Or is it not possible to run two Zorros at the same time ?

So do you think that the reason for the Z Strategies not running for several days is because they are trading virtually for a while to spare us the begining losses ?

From what I can tell, having Traded Z2 and Z12, they actually do start trading straight away. However in reality that means they sit there for a while watching the market waiting for their first move. Once the first entry condition is met, the first trade goes in. This can take a few hours or a few days. Then the next one follows and so on. As many trades will be losers and close early, there is a good chance your account goes backwards at first until enough trades are open and hopefully the winners have taken over. It can take a week or two for the strategy to be in full swing.

I would recommend to use a demo account and trade that one for a little while, that gives you the feel for things. You don't need Zorro S to trade a demo even with Z12. I use FXCM, you can set one up in a minute. Everything is the real deal, except for the money.

When it comes to risk management, I have been taking out half of the closed profits every week, as long as ther was some, and reinvested the other half. That is roughly in line with the square root rule, and boy, am I glad I did, because although Z12 has been very generous to me, it is just going through my first big drawdown for the last couple of weeks, but I know, should the CBI really hit the 0% mark, I will still be ahead. So yes, the square root rule is a good thing, it keeps you from becoming greedy, which is a very dangerous state to be in. Trust me, I learned the hard way, some years ago.

Enjoy, and hang in there for the ride. Oh, and never ever trade with money you can't afford to lose.

Absolutely. You should run a demo Z12 for a while, get the feel of things and prepare to study and learn a lot...

After a few months, you may be able to invest your money and start coding your own strategies. Again, consider this as a training fee and keep learning.

Keep for sure you will have drawdowns, some of them will be long and big, but it's part of the game, you must be commited to stay here for the long run, be patient.

Good luck!

Thanks Meini, your recommendation is quite helpful.
I nearly went straight to your recommended FXCM, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of brokers out there.

How did you distinguish between them all?
What I see so far is that I can search for reviews,
and I think (currently still residing in Germany) I also have to do some research into whether I have to pay different taxes if I trade with a forein broker.

If anyone could shed some light into how to find a good firm to trade with, I would highly aprrecciate it.

I wish I could vote comments up here, Brax - you would have gotten a few points from me already.

Now your answer was kind of unclear to me:
On one hand I asked whether I whould trade Z1 and Z2 separately,
and you said "yes, absolutely";
but then you added that I should run a Z12 for a while.

So do I understand you right, that I should run virtual demo trades with 3 separately installed Zorros (if that even is possible) :
Z1, Z2, and Z12 parallel, and then compare them after 3-4 months ?

I will try to install a second Zorro now and then try to find a good broker to go with (whilst I learn more about broking and coding of course).

http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/

FXCM and Oanda are top ones.

Sorry to have confused you, as i suppose you will demo trade with a free Zorro license, then you must use two instances. One with Z1 and the other with Z2.

Run them, learn the mechanics of Zorro and wait for the next step.

If you cannot afford to trade all Z1/Z2 assets, you can disable some of them and trade EURUSD and USDJPY for example.

This is explained here at the end:

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

Yea, Brax, the forexpeacarmy is great - I just found and instantly bookmarked it yesterday.
User Main also recommended FXCM, but I am a bit puzzled, because in the reviews there Oanda as well as FXCM turn out to get many bad reviews - Oanda even being worse.
I did read carefully the fpa reviews to make sure that I did not miss anything, but however I twisted the search, they are not really top ones as you say. Display 50 results as a list and you will see for yourself.
Oanda, by the reviews, seems not to be taken seriously, and FXCM is a case of its own: They recently were sued and accused for wrongdoings so they seem not to be ethical, but there seems to be a cheating element within their firm.
One reviewer put it like this:
"it almost seems as if some [FXCM] clients have no problem, while others experience a nightmare. so, since they are still in business, my suspicion is this: their IT team must have a randomizer (or should i call it a 'selector') running on the servers, hitting only some accounts and leaving other accounts untouched. that way, you keep 50% of the herd happy and can plausibly deny any wrong doing by attributing poor trading skills to the rest of the 50% losers"

So I am surprised that you two seem to be happy traders with them.
For setting up a demo account it doesn't matter, but I also am practicing in seeing clearly what is a good and bad trader.

Another aspect are the weired affilliate brokers, through which Zorro offers 3-12 months of free Zorro S usage:
* Oanda seems not to be taken serious,
* the moneypouch is probably their own robot site which only starts with a minimuim of 10,000 - a joke, because if I had that money I would longtime have bought a S-lifetime version.
* Now the by far best reviews go for their third Broker Global prime in the forexpeacearmy, but the joke is that their link goes to some really cryptic site whose SUBdomain only is globalprime, and which does not state anything, plus when I go to their main domain, nothing is displayed. This looks like a typical phishing or scam site, would I not know better that it is a serious link provided by Zorro.

Long story short: I might setup a demo account with FXCM, but would never trade real money with them and I would be happier to first find a real good one - like the real globalprime.com.au which comes up as the first 5 star rated broker when sorting by most reviews: http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/forex-reviews?c%5B0%5D=1&per-page=50&sort=-review_count&view-mode=list
(I have to ask Zorro if they also give 3 months of S for people who have signed up over their official site, or at least why they have such a strange affiliation site: https://globalprime.finly.com/?promocode=ZORRO

Hi Fuchs.

I understand your confussion, as brokers world is a complete jungle, you never know what you're going to find out there...

I can only speak about my own experience and other people i know, and the fact is that Interactive Brokers and Oanda are the brokers most people have been using over the last years.

It's true FXCM has been sued recently, i forgot that.

I didn't know about GlobalPrime, seems quite good. I'll take them into account for the future.

I hope you choose well and don't have any problems.

Bye.