Almost a month of competition has passed. We have now some interesting statistics concerning the Championship Participants and their Expert Advisors. As expected, the most experts (61.63%) turned to be losing (the lower area). These are basically very risky experts. Many Participants undertook high risks in order to get into the Top Three. However, they did not succeed and are at the end of the list now. This group also contains those Expert Advisors that have errors in their codes: starting with errors in signals and logic and finishing with errors in order placing.

The middle area is gradually decreasing. These are experts that have not made any trades and, correspondingly, have neither increased nor decreased their equity. After the first week of the Championship, there were 10 per cent of such Expert Advisors. Now they make only 5%. Very cautious experts that open positions for safety belong to this group. For instance, expert named Aver. It did not trade at all for two weeks. But it needed just three days and two positions to earn about 6000 dollars and get to the Top Ten. Besides, this group contains experts that have errors in their codes, which just do not allow them to open positions.

The upper area shows profitable experts dynamics. There were more such experts at the very beginning than now. This is due to great amount of risky expert present in this group. They make errors with the time and go to the group of losing experts. Currently, this group contains 86 Expert Advisors, which make approximately 33% of all Participants of the Automated Trading Championship 2006.

Fig. 1. Expert Advisors Grouped by Equity

Average Equity

The experts' average equity is a good indicator that shows how the things stand. If we take the average equity of all experts participating in the Championship, we will see that this index goes down. The blue curve in Fig. 2 shows how the average equity changes. This is a descending curve since about two thirds of all experts are losing. As yet, the average equity of all experts has not increased significantly, but it has often decreased.

However, this factor can start to increase with the time. This will happen when losing experts start to trade with smaller volumes and, correspondingly, slightly influence the average equity. At the same time, the profitable experts will trade with larger volumes and influence hugely this factor. It must be noted that the average equity sink rate has already slowed. At the end of the first week, this parameter was 9500 dollars, at the end of the second week - nearly 9000, at the end of the third - 8800, and at the end of the fourth week it decreased by only 20 dollars and made 8780. The equity of losing experts (the red line) most of all decreased within the first two weeks, then the sink rate slowed.

Equity of all profitable experts is shown in green. As you can see from the figure, the dynamics of positive equity slows, as well. The matter is that the most of risky experts that had rapidly increased their profits at the very beginning dropped out of the profitable group. The Top Ten experts have earned about 60 thousand dollars within the first week only. Then errors started to occur and the growth slowed. Besides, the fact must be noted that profitable and rather effective experts make some losing trades, too.

Fig. 2. Expert Advisors’ Average Equity

Experts’ Distribution by Equity

Distribution of experts according to their equity is a rather interesting parameter, too. All experts can be divided into groups depending on their equities. For example, the first group can include the experts, equities of which lie in the range of 0.00 to 1000.00. Those having equities from 1000.01 to 2000.00 will be in the second group, etc. Some of these groups will contain many experts, some will be empty. But, having calculated the amount of experts in each group, one can imagine how the things are going.

The distribution of experts by equity at the end of the fourth week of the Championship is shown in Fig. 3. The graph shows that the most experts are located in the area near to 10000 (initial deposit). More and more experts move away from the value of 10000 with the time. Some of them get to the group of experts with equities above 10000, the other ones - to the group of smaller equities. One can see in the figure, as well, that there are much more experts concentrated to the left of the 10000 label than to the right of it. This means that the most of experts have had losses. There are very few experts located to the right of the 15000 label. It is these experts that have the most chances to take top places.

Fig. 3. Distribution of Expert Advisors by Equity by the End of the 4th Week

Conclusions

1. As expected, there are many losing experts. They make about two thirds of the total amount of experts. This group also includes the experts that are built on an unhappy strategy or contain errors in their codes, as well as very risky experts. Of course, to avoid such situations in the real trading, it is necessary to think over and realize one's trading system, as well as provide it with a reasonable money-management mechanism. Otherwise, the expert is foredoomed to failure.
2. 2. Profitable experts make about one third of all experts. These experts stand out by a certain balance between the risk and the profitability. They sometimes make losing trades, but the amount of such operations is less than that of profitable trades. This helps such automated systems to show more profitable and reliable trading in the longer term.