September, 14 2006. There are just under 10 days remaining until the registration for Automated Trading Championship 2006 is closed. It is time now to summarize some preliminary results. About 500 developers have submitted for participation in the Championship. Over 150 people have completed the registration. Thus, there are about 30% of developers at the moment that are accepted to participate in the competition.

"The other 350 potential participants are highly recommended to make up for lost time: The registration deadline is approaching. If they linger and wait until the last day to complete their registration, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to check their details and test their Expert Advisors. This may result in having their participation refused," stated Stanislav Starikov, the Jury member of the Automated Trading Championship 2006.

Developers from different countries have registered for participation in the Championship. Below is the diagram showing the percentage of each country at the present time:

"It could be predicted that Russia and Ukraine would predominate in the top ten of the most active countries. However, we are really surprised by the appearance of Indonesia in third place. Indonesian developers have even outrun in quantity their Chinese and American colleagues," commented Stanislav Starikov. The final list of Participants will be published on the website of the Automated Trading Championship 2006 shortly after the 25th September 2006.

Whilst checking personal details of participants, we discovered a specific feature: There are only a few who specify their names and surnames in the "Public" section. Many of those, who do, write their names in their local languages. In this section, the names must be written only in English. In the "Private" section, they can be written in the official language, which the passport or other identity paper was issued.

There are some other fouls, too. As already known, a Participant can register only once and submit only one Expert Advisor. But some unfair participants seem to have forgotten about this and registered several times under different names. They all will be disqualified and will not be permitted to strive for the Championship prizes.

Testing of experts, too, has its unique features. Approximately two thirds of the experts submitted were tested faultlessly. So, we do not hold anything against these developers or their experts. They are now Participants of the Championship. But it is a bit more complicated with the remaining one third. Various errors occur: starting with no control over free funds before opening of a position and finishing with the direct violation of the Championship Rules. "We have contacted these developers, asking them to make corresponding changes in their experts. We hope that they all will make changes and will take part in the Automated Trading Championship 2006," said Renat Fatkhullin, CEO of MetaQuotes Software Corp.