Thomas Bopp: Championship is a great event.

The Championship of the last year was symbolic, unique and useful. It brought together a good many various trading systems having different algorithms, characteristics and realization levels. Thomas Bopp says that "it was a great event because everybody knew in the end at what level his or her Expert Advisor stood. When someone develops an Expert Advisor, he or she doesn’t know whether it will be a good one or not. The Championship helped see it". In Thomas' opinion, the contest also helped developers of effective systems to go through paces and to make a statement.

Automated Trading Championship 2006 helped to see problems Expert Advisors' developers face regularly, to understand what mistakes they make, what they omit when developing Expert Advisors. We saw giddy ups and disastrous failures in the last-year contest. Expert Advisors burst into the Top Ten like the wind and left the first page as quickly in order never to appear on it again. The most shining example is, of course, Sashken's Expert Advisor. He gained huge profits due to an error in the code and stopped only by Margin Call. There were such Participants whose profitable strategies also traded 0.1 or 1.0 lot due to some sad mistakes. They all did not take prize places nor they shared prize money. This privilege was got by those whose Expert Advisors contained fewer errors and had positive expected payoff.

Al Parsai: Without money management the odds of winning are very low.

However, it does not go like clockwork here, either. The Winner of the last-year Championship, Roman Zamozhniy (Rich), confesses that his victory is a matter of chance to a large extent. Indeed, if we look at how Participants alternated in the Top Ten, we will have to admit: there were elements of chance for everybody. For example, Hendrick was among the top participants along with Ldamiani for a long time. However, by the end of the contest Hendrick had been the 5th while Ldamiani had held down the 2nd line in the list.

Such as there were, all results obtained within the framework of the Automated Trading Championship 2006 turned to be useful. Having won, Roman Zamozhniy remained unsatisfied with his Expert Advisor. He wrote a new EA for Championship'2007 having partly used the results provided by his previous Expert Advisor: "I have fully revised the list of indicators my strategy is based on." As often happens, a negative result is a result, too. Ahmed Soliman (CodersGuru) failed at the last Championship. However, he was not disappointed in automated trading. Ahmed admits that he "learned the lesson very well" and thinks that it was that fact that helped him to prepare for the new Championship better.

Ahmed Soliman: This year will be 100% different in the quality of Expert Advisors.

Championship 2006 changed much in the developers' views. Participants of the last-year Championship drew the conclusion that it was very important to review their trading strategies fundamentally, choose other analytical tools or systems of risk and money management. For example, Ahmed Soliman parted with technical analysis and developed an Expert Advisor working on news analysis.

Now developers see a profitable Expert Advisor differently than one year ago. In 2006, they named a wide range of parameters to be the basis of profitability for an EA: from analytical tools to programming level. One year later, nobody mentions quality of programming. Everybody seems to be sure that any errors may cause fatal losses and to have pulled up their programming skills. Money management is more and more frequently mentioned as a factor making a positive impact on the profitability of an Expert Advisor. Andrei Moraru supposes the basis for trading success to be quite simple: It is "a competent money-management strategy and stable forecasting of successful entry and exit points… The attempts to create an automated Expert Advisor without these two qualities are doomed to failure." Al Parsai, the developer of commercial Expert Advisors and the author of the PipBoxer package, thinks that a perfect Expert Advisor must consist of successful strategy, risk-management and money-management systems. He emphasizes: "Without money management the odds of winning are very low." Ahmed Soliman is even more categorical: "Good money-management is undoubtedly the key to success, for any Expert Advisor." Well, after the 1st of October 2007 we will see whose money-management system is more effective.

It must be noted that the level of all last-year Expert Advisors was still rather low. According to Thomas Bopp, this will look different in this new Championship: "Every programmer will do his or her best to develop an Expert Advisor that will get into a profitable area". As a result, competition will grow. The larger amount of Participants will also contribute to this. According to Ahmed Soliman, the most of the last-year Participants just tested their strategies and EAs: "The Idea of the Championship itself was a new one and I believe most of the participations weren't so serious; perhaps they were somehow doubtful about the idea. I'm sure this year will be 100% different in the quality of Expert Advisors and you will find the intention of winning very obvious." It is interesting, but not everybody sees the growth of competition in the same way. Roman Zamozhniy is sure that Participants should not be afraid of the competition: "We fight against the market, and not against each other." Well, we shall see. One thing is undoubted: The struggle will be more dynamic and exciting this year.

Registration of Participants will be closed in a few days. As of the stage, 455 developers have already been registered. Less than two weeks are left till the beginning of the Automated Trading Championship 2007.