The twelfth week is notable for several interesting facts and new Championship records. And though the top five did not change, these Participants' balance values were changing in different directions during this week. This was the influence of new market convulsions.

The total equity of the top ten has increased again and is now equal to $1,120,660 thus the increase is equal to 3.4% as compared to the sum of $1,083,637 of the previous week. The difference between the 1st and the 10th places has increased significantly and is now $126,463. We can say almost for sure that only four participants have chances to win a prize. These are Liliput, abeiks, PrizmaL and Gorez.

#	Login	Name	Country	PF	Balance	Profit	Equity
1	600349	Liliput	Bulgaria	3.43	171 999.65	16 386.42	188 386.07
2	600011	abeiks	Latvia	2.45	160 218.88	0.00	160 218.88
3	600486	PrizmaL	Israel	1.92	161 088.12	-1 202.39	159 885.73
4	600260	Gorez	Russia	3.71	136 702.03	11 266.20	147 968.23
5	600125	Cronex	Russia	1.56	104 893.03	-1 602.00	103 291.03
6	600211	fireflies	Indonesia	2.10	100 105.91	0.00	100 105.91
7	600233	FXPro	Russia	1.21	69 578.20	0.00	69 578.20
8	600638	vam	Luxembourg	1.36	66 115.84	0.00	66 115.84
9	600066	arnautov	Russia	6.15	60 628.37	2 561.99	63 190.36
10	600046	amelabs	United States	3.59	61 922.24	0.00	61 922.24

It seems Cronex and fireflies whose equities are a little larger than $100,000 have almost no chances to become prize-winners, because they are $60,000 far from current leaders. In normal conditions it is impossible to earn such a sum. However, it is quite easy to lose it - we see it on the example of thezen.

Fig.1. Balance chart of thezen.

Recently his balance chart was straight an even. The secret is very simple - taking profits that are small in points and not taking losses. Such an easy rule helped this Participant to reach the sum of $86,780 by the end of the first month:

As the Expert of thezen was studied quite well, in the article Reporting the Sixth Week we considered three possible variants of the further situation development:

It seemed the EA would survive till the end of the contest and the losing position would be closed automatically. But the market showed once again that any sweeping events are possible overcoming more than 2000 points on EURUSD for two weeks. This was more than enough to close thezen's position by Stop Out.

Fig.2. Closing thezen's EURUSD Sell position by Stop Out.

At the moment of the position closing the loss was equal to $83,750 (-$81 150 was the loss from the price change and - $2 600 was made up by accumulated swaps). The balance at that moment was equal to $86,798. After taking away the loss value equity was $3,048. The order #6740664 was opened to sell 5 lots at the price of 1.2374, which requires the margin of $6 187 (5 * $1237.4).

The Stop Out level in the Championship being 50%, thezen's equity must not be less than 50% of 6 187 = $3093.5. The moment the equity became less than this value, the losing position was forcedly closed. All these data are reflected in order comments.

Fig.3. A comment to the order #6740664 on the account of thezen.

From time to time questions appear in forums about the mechanism of Stop Out and calculations connected with this. We believe now there will be fewer such questions.

Also dramatic was the situation on Liliput's account. A week ago we wondered whether his EA would be able to finish the Championship with the balance above $200,000. During the larger part of the previous week we were almost absolutely sure of that, because his equity rose above $220,000!

On Wednesday, a Take Profit fixed the profit of one of the three open positions over $25,000. Balance reached the value of $183,000, and moreover there were two open positions the total profit of which exceeded $41,000. Thus the new Championship record of equity made up $224,500!

But exactly at that moment when it seemed that $200,000 would be easily achieved, the situation changed sharply and more than $11,000 were lost. Though, it is hard to imagine that anyone can catch up with Liliput. The final result will be known on Friday, the 26th of December.

The second and the third places are occupied by abeiks and PrizmaL. Almost during the whole week PrizmaL was on the second place, but on Friday abeiks got ahead of him. His EA made a mistake and on Thursday night had 6 losing trades in succession. As a result his balance diminished till $154,400. But the following 11 profitable trades helped him to recover.

On weekend PrizmaL had three open positions with a small loss. If on Monday, the 22th of December EURGBP opens with a fall, his account will suffer the loss of 4,200 pounds or more (in case of a gap).

The fourth place is still occupied by Gorez. At the present moment he has an open position, the profit of which at the moment of trade session closing was $11 260. Thus the equity of his account is near to $150,000. If anyone of the leading three makes a rough mistake, Gorez will get a chance to become a prize winner.

The Participant Cronex with the current balance of $104,893 is on the 5th place. During the previous week his EA executed 21 trades with the total loss of $15,182.

Fig.4. Trades of Cronex on EURUSD M15 chart.

It is clear from Cronex's comments that his trading robot uses an unusual system of position size management. After getting a sequence of winning trades the EA starts trading the minimal lot (0.1) until a losing trade appears. After that the position size is equal to a maximally possible one.

The problem of this approach is that starting from the 8th of December his EA could not get a loss, so all positions were opened with a minimal lot. So, by the moment of a losing trade the profitable sequence consisted of 33 trades which totally made 3 029 points of profit. If these trades were at least 1 lot, profit would be more than $30,000.

We have constructed a chart of his last 36 trades, executed by the EA during the last two weeks:

Fig. 5. Balance chart of profit in points obtained by Cronex's EA during the 2nd and 3rd weeks of December.

Even the 34th and 35th trades that lost 162 and 363 points correspondingly do not spoil the impression. Unfortunately, in reality the 35th trade was opened with the maximal volume of 5 lots, because the previous trade brought the wanted loss. So on the account the fall was crucial.

Fig.6. Balance chart of Cronex.

The chart part of the latest 36 trades is shown in a dark rectangle. After losing $18,150, the Participant's EA diminished the volume of opened trades again. Will it be able to recover for during the remaining week? As far as we understood the algorithm, the EA should have a small loss to start trading the maximal volume again.

The 5th place is not guaranteed to Cronex also because the Participant fireflies is very close to him. Presently the difference is a little more than $2,000, which is 2%.

Fig. 7. Balance chart of fireflies.

This Participant made his personal record reaching the maximum on the balance chart.

On the 7th place we see FXPro who was the sixth a week ago. The eighth place is occupied by a new top-ten visitor vam from Luxemburg.

Fig. 8. Balance chart of vam.

Despite the fact that his EA has conducted almost 1400 trades, vam entered the top ten only this week. His rise was swift, almost vertical, but it was followed by a 50% correction.

On the 9th and 10th places we see arnautov and amelabs correspondingly. For this week they just swapped their places.

This was the report on the 12th week of the Championship, which is the last but one. In the ATC 2006 the struggle for the prize was going till the last minutes of the contest. Will we see the similar heat of the struggle this year? There is only one week left to wait.