Hello, Tai. You are far ahead of all the other Participants at the moment. Could you tell us a little about yourself – what is your profession and how long have you been involved in trading?
I'm a self-employed web-developer, predominantly I focus on back-end programming though have a long history of frontend development as well. I've been trading for about 3 years, mostly a lot of demo accounts. About a year ago I opened a very small forex account that I've been trading whenever I feel the urge.

I actually got into currency trading when my sister’s ex told me that it was what he did for a living. Since i spend so much time in front of the computer, I thought I could do it while I worked. It also appealed to my technical programming side.

When did you take an interest in automated trading? Do you use it in real trading?
From the first day, I've had a very keen interest in automated trading. At present, I don't use it in real trading, my small account and risk aversion have thus far prevented me from using it in real trading.

I'm also waiting until I come up with that one super-strategy that everyone is looking for.

You know, Tai, some developers think there is no "holy grail" at all. They believe an EA has to be revised from time to time. What do you think about such approach?
We can all dream, can't we? At present, I'm interested more in something which has proven results over a long period without any intervention, rather than an EA which requires frequent optimization. Whether that's the right approach – I'm not certain. That being said, I' looked into neural networks and genetic algorithms/programming in the past without any real success. However, I've been very impressed with the success of some of the neural-based EAs this year, so I'm planning to explore this area again.

Many EA developers decided to participate in the Championship not only for winning a prize, but also for testing their developments in independent conditions. What is your purpose of participation in the Championship?
Last year, I was planning to develop an EA, though I ran out of time and therefore was definitely not going to win. This year, again, I ran out of time and thought that I should just get something together as I couldn't win if I wasn't competing. The major problem that I have with developing my EAs is being taken out on volatility, as the USDCAD trends quite smoothly and I have a long-term belief in the price of oil going up. I thought that I could apply a longer-term strategy on major signals and be profitable.

I would like to win a prize, though I think that we'll experience a slowdown or even retracement before the end of the Championship, which will hurt my chances. So far, the trend has been going very well, which is good, though probably means we're in for a bigger retracement.

What does the name of your EA mean?
It's a part of the pet name I gave to my wife, "Pikku Enkeli" which in Finnish (my mother is Finnish) means "little angel".

A very profitable angel, I’d say. There was a similar Expert Advisor with no stop orders in the last-year Championship. But the EA code contained an error, so it lost the deposit at the end. In your case, it is a conscious choice. Tell us, please, why you decided not to set up stop orders.
I could have set up stops though they would've been very wide. There are naturally inbuilt stops that will trigger when the prices move back inside the bands (it's a Bollinger Bands-based strategy).

The amount of lots is not fixed in your EA. How is the volume of each trade calculated?
I just modified one of the standard ones that come with MetaTrader. I misread the Rules and thought that we could only open 5 lots in total. So what it does is at the start of each day it'll buy more assuming the entry conditions are ok. The idea was that it would be a very quick poor man’s method of pyramiding, though the first couple of days (price going up) didn't really enter my mind while I was coding so instead it opened smaller positions on the following days instead of larger ones. In hindsight, I think it may have been a lucky mistake.

Now Pikku doesn’t show trading. There are no trades to be analyzed, nothing that characterizes your Expert Advisor as such. Could you, please, answer the question that interests many of us: Can the trades be closed till the end of the Championship?
They can definitely be closed, though if they are I don't think I'll feature on the podium. I'll quickly outline the strategy (it's pretty simple):

• Draw 100-period Bollinger Bands at 1 stdev. There's no science behind the 100, just a large round number.
• If yesterday’s High is below the lower one, SELL (BUY if the Low is above the upper).
• If a short position is opened and yesterday’s Low is above the lower one, CLOSE (CLOSE if a long position is opened and yesterday’s High is below the upper one). In my brief testing, it didn't suffer too much from volatility, which is what I was aiming for.

In my brief testing, it didn't suffer too much from volatility, which is what I was aiming for.

Have you already been offered to sell your Expert Advisor?
Well, this is funny. Yes, I had a message from Warren Buffet... naturally, I took it as a joke. I also had a message on my blog asking about purchasing it, though I told them it wasn't worthy of being sold. Since they have all they need from the preceding question. They can now build it for themselves!

Your Expert Advisor trades on the Canadian dollar (USDCAD) only? Can it be profitable in the testing on other currency pairs? If yes, why haven’t you included the possibility of trading on other securities for risk diversity?
I'm a big fan of diversification and would like to diversify across other pairs. However, the other pairs all tend to have much more volatility, which I have trouble dealing with in my EAs. There is also a fair amount of correlation between most currency pairs which makes them less than ideal candidates when looking to reduce risk. I'm planning to look at diversification through different timeframes as opposed to different pairs.

You have written that you do not really count on the win. Suppose you become a Winner, what will you do with the Prize?
If by some miracle the Canadian dollar keeps going the right way I'll definitely celebrate! Then hopefully put it towards a house/apartment.