Two thirds of the Championship have already passed. The first places are taken by familiar Participants, however, surprises run on.

The first place is, like it was a week ago, occupied by Olexandr Topchylo (Better) from Ukraine. His equity has doubled within the last 5 trade days, and now it makes 88 thousand. A fabulous result! This Participant's Expert Advisor represents a self-teaching neural network. This "education" seems to be very helpful for the trading system. Olexandr has a degree of Cand. Sc. (Physics and Mathematics). This education and his knowledge seem to help him in writing such a successful Expert Advisor. If the EA manages to hold the balance, it will most likely be this Expert Advisor that wins the Championship. Our congratulations to Olexandr on having the first place and impressive "breakaway" from other "racers".

The second place was taken this time by another acquaintance, Alexei Ermolaev (Zyx40) from Russia. His result is not so striking as that of Better, but it's also much higher than those of the other Participants of the Automated Trading Championship 2007. The EA has accumulated 34 thousand dollars on the account by the end of the eighth week. Alexei, being experienced in statistical analysis, used scientific approach to development of his EA, too. As we can see, the tendency is becoming clear: In order to develop effective and profitable Expert Advisors, one has to know much about rather boring fields of knowledge and be able to apply their skills properly. So far, we will wish Alexei further success in developing Expert Advisors and go to the third place.

This week, it is taken by another acquaintance of us, Drazen Ziskovic (draz) from Croatia. He was the second as of the end of the 5th week, and he was fifth last week. This time, his equity of 32.5 thousand dollars allowed him to take the third place. This Participant's Expert Advisor is rather aggressive, so nobody knows how it will conduct in the future. Besides, its Profit Factor is not high enough for the Top Three. Nevertheless, we are glad to congratulate Drazen to his third place!

The Top Ten of the eighth week of the Automated Trading Championship 2007:

#	Login	Name	Country	PF	Balance	Profit	Equity
1	500008	Better	Ukraine	3.43	86 526.20	2 395.00	88 921.20
2	500162	zyx40	Russia	2.81	35 296.80	-637.60	34 659.20
3	500123	draz	Croatia	1.56	32 593.70	0.00	32 593.70
4	500097	Saloght	Russia	2.24	32 485.20	0.00	32 485.20
5	500432	winwin2007	Germany	5.20	28 376.20	0.00	28 376.20
6	500571	dwijayanti	Indonesia	2.07	19 130.43	7 894.17	27 024.60
7	500349	vgc	Bulgaria	1.56	21 319.64	5 614.20	26 933.84
8	500031	ttauzo	Poland	0.00	26 899.70	0.00	26 899.70
9	500497	admadinata	Indonesia	0.00	26 369.30	0.00	26 369.30
10	500477	xeon	Russia	3.19	25 623.61	0.00	25 623.61

This week, equity of the Top Ten has grown by 47 thousand again (46 of them were made by the leader of the Championship) and reached almost a quarter of a million. Judging by the known nicknames in the Top Ten, it doesn't contain risky Expert Advisors anymore. It is most likely that all three future Winners of the Championship have already been in the table of leaders. However, if we can say that the probability of that the first place will be taken by Better is rather high, the situation with the second and the third place is still uncertain. Well, the Expert Advisors have four weeks before them to find out about who wins the second and the third prize. Watch the Championship and develop profitable Expert Advisors!