Automated Trading Championship 2012: How to Fix Errors in Trading Robots Some applicants think that automatic tests of Expert Advisors are a mere formality, which is not really important for the Championship. They ignore the fact that such tests are objective and valuable experience for automated trading system developers. Here we present an overview of the most common errors revealed during the tests, as well as tips to fix them. Trading robots are applications that consume processor's RAM and computational resources. The better is the program, the less resources it requires, i.e. the more efficient it is. Any program can be written in many different ways, and not all of them will be effective by these parameters. We can be absolutely sure that a poorly designed Expert Advisor will consume a large amount of resources not only when operating on MetaTrader 5 chart during the Championship but also during the automatic tests. Thus, there is another requirement for all trading robots accepted for the Automated Trading Championship 2012 - test should take no longer than 30 minutes. If your Expert Advisor is not able to fit in this time during the tests, your trading robot evidently has programming errors. For example, MACD Sample from the standard set completes the test on EURUSD H1 at the interval from January 1, 2012 to August 1, 2012 in "Every tick" mode without exceeding 30 seconds. Check it out on your PC. Strategy Tester in MetaTrader 5 terminal is a multi-symbol one. That allows to perform tests of multicurrency Expert Advisors for the Championship. But nothing comes for free, as multicurrency trading system requires more time for processing ticks, indicators and many other operations related to the quantity of the symbols used in the Expert Advisor. The full text of the news can be found at the Championship website - How to Fix Errors in Trading Robots.
Automated Trading Championship 2012: Another Month of Registration Two months of registration for the Automated Trading Championship 2012 have passed and we already can examine some preliminary results. The uptrend of the total applicants number remains in force already exceeding 1600 and we cannot yet determine the possible resistance level. This year's results have beaten the record of ATC 2008 notable for its large amount of registrations. At that time, it was performed using MetaTrader 4 platform and MQL4 language. Seven weeks have left before the end of the registration but you still can join the battle, even if you are new at working with MetaTrader 5. The article Fast Dive into MQL5 has been written especially for those who are doubtful of their skills and abilities or do not know where to begin. The article proves that MQL5 can be mastered by anyone providing plenty of amazing features and opportunities! Do you want to enter the Championship's TOP-10 and leave your name in the competition chronicles? Then register, fill your personal data and send your Expert Advisor. Good luck! The full text of the news can be found at the Championship website - Another Month of Registration.
Automated Trading Championship 2012: The Mystery of Changing Leaders Solved? All Automated Trading Championships have witnessed the rise and fall of many leaders. Some participants doubled their deposits within a week just to lose their funds in a few consecutive days. Many ex-leaders were not even able to finish the competition in TOP-10. It was even called "the curse of the interview". We have analyzed the market (the most popular EURUSD pair) behavior during the competitions trying to find any correlations between the market conditions and the achievements of the Championships' winners. All the statistical data concerning the winners of the past years as well as some regularities between their trading strategies and obtained results have been examined. Of course, we have analyzed only EURUSD and you can put into question our approach. But this pair remains the basic one and affects the other currencies. We will surely see many exciting things on the market this fall. What will be the main trends of the global economy? Your Expert Advisor should be able to navigate through the volatile market considering various courses of events. That is the key to success. Good luck! The full text of the news can be found at the Championship website - The Mystery of Changing Leaders Solved?
Automated Trading Championship 2012: One Month Left Before Registration Deadline Registration at the Automated Trading Championship 2012 for everyone to challenge for real $ 80,000 will end very soon. There are over 2,000 applications, but only little more than 1000 of them have passed verification of personal data - less than half! Participants, whose EAs have overcome automatic tests 10 times less - just a hundred. Hurry up, only month is left while you can still bring your trading robot to perfection. And, judging by the previous years' experience, it is not too much as it seems. Traditionally, in the last month of registration we expect a large influx of Expert Advisers. Judging by the number of applications, it's obvious to see the greater number of competitors this year rather than in previous. This means that those who procrastinate with automatic tests have lesser chance to get to the Championship. We continue to prepare useful materials for the Championship participants and have just published the Trade Operations in MQL5 - It's Easy article which can save time when creating an Expert Advisor. While there is time, we strongly encourage all the contenders to test their Expert Advisors before sending them for testing. If you successfully test your trading robot in environment closest to the Championship conditions, you significantly increase your chance to join the competition. Read on to learn how to do it. The full text of the news can be found at the Championship website - One Month Left Before Registration Deadline.
Automated Trading Championship 2012: Optimization VS Reality - Evidence from ATC 2011 You want it, you've got it! After the publication of the article The Mystery of Changing Leaders Solved? we have received many requests to write an article having a greater analytical bias. Today we have a hot topic - comparing the Expert Advisors' parameters obtained during the automatic tests before the Automated Trading Championship 2011 with the ones shown during the Championship itself. Each test report contains many statistical parameters from the number of trades to profit factor, Sharpe ratio, etc. In this article we will examine only some general parameters in order not to disclose any personal data: - Final balance - Number of input parameters - Timeframe - Profit deals ratio - Profit factor We will try to find out how the automatic test results correlate with the Championship ones (if there is any correlation at all). Read the full article on the Championship's website - Optimization VS Reality: Evidence from ATC 2011.
Leaders of the Automated Trading Championship 2010 and 2011: Pole-Position. Are you still full of doubts that testing a strategy on historical data can be useful in real trading? In this article, we will compare achievements of the previous Championships' leading participants with their results shown in MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester during the automatic tests. The Championship observers have always been curious about the results shown by the leading trading robots in the Strategy Tester before the competitions. Are they genuine winners or was it pure luck? Qualification Round Participants Results of the following participants will be analyzed in the article: <ul><li>Igor Korepin (Xupypr) - 1st place at ATC 2011. </li><li>Ge Senlin (yyy999) - 3rd place at ATC 2011. </li><li>Vitaly Antonov (beast) - 4th place at ATC 2011.</li><li>Andrey Bobryashov (tim0866) - 7th place at ATC 2011. </li><li>Ilnur Khasanov (aharata) - 10th place at ATC 2011. </li><li>Boris Odintsov (bobsley) - 1st place at ATC 2010. </li><li>Andrey Voitenko (avoitenko) - 4th place at ATC 2010. </li><li>Dmitry Yedelkin (Yedelkin) - 7th place at ATC 2010. </li><li>Dimitar Manov (Manov) - 10th place at ATC 2010.</li></ul>Not all participants have responded to our request to use their competition data. Therefore, we have not been able to include the entire TOP-10 into our analysis. So, "we have what we have." Read the full article on the Championship's website - <a href="http://championship.mql5.com/2012/en/news/161">Leaders of the Automated Trading Championship 2010 and 2011: Pole-Position[/URL].
Automated Trading Championship 2012: Applying ZigZag for Analysis Each newcomer wants to create a trading system capable of making maximum profit on each price movement. As time passes by, traders gain more and more experience finally reaching more realistic expectations and abandoning their dreams to buy exactly on the very bottoms and sell on the very tops. Everyone knows that it is impossible to trade with the accuracy of ZigZag indicator often shown on history data. But it is possible enough to use ZigZag to calculate the virtual maximum profit... Zigzags Are Different All traders know about this indicator and it is impossible to find even a single trader who has not used it at least once. Some traders liken ZigZag to Elliott waves, some use it to obtain objective data on the current market state. Each developer of automated trading systems has his or her own idea about ZigZag. The terminal's standard delivery contains two types of this indicator - standard one for several generations of MetaTrader terminals ZigZag and its color version ZigZagColor. Over the years, many attempts have been made to improve this indicator. Perhaps, no one knows the exact number of versions, except for Eugeni Neumoin, developer of ZUP complex. We have decided to use ZigZag from the standard delivery as a tool for a simple analysis of the Automated Trading Championship currency pairs. So, today we will finally answer the question that we could not answer earlier due to lack of time or skills: "How much can you earn with ZigZag (in theory, of course)?" What and How Have We Measured? The Championship audience, as well as everyone interested in algo trading, was always curious about how many Championship participants trade some definite symbol or timeframe. Therefore, we have examined all 12 currency pairs that were available at the Automated Trading Championship 2011 and used ZigZag to calculate the following parameters: number of ZigZag bends, maximum possible profit when trading 1 lot, average bend length. Calculations have been made on the period from October 1, 2011 to December 25, 2011, which roughly covers the last year's Championship. Calculations have been made for twelve currency pairs on 8 timeframes from M1 to H4 inclusively. Larger timeframes have not been considered, as they were not so popular among the participants of the Automated Trading Championship 2011. We also wanted to know if there any correlation between selection of a currency pair and its characteristics in this review. Read the full article on the Championship's website - Applying ZigZag for Analysis.
Automated Trading Championship 2012: Last Days before the Registration End Registration for the Automated Trading Championship has entered its final stage. Less than three days have left before the deadline. More than 3 400 applications have already been submitted. However, it depends only on the applicants themselves if they are able to become actual participants. In recent days, the number of potential competitors for the prize money is increasing but most of them will not be accepted for the competition. Test and optimize your strategy and make sure that the settings contain exactly the same parameters you have found. Check the limitations for the operation time and account number to let your trading robot not only pass all the automatic tests but also start trading on the Championship itself. Submit your Expert Advisor if you have not already done that, and good luck! Read the full article on the Championship's website - Last Days before the Registration End.
Automated Trading Championship 2012: Registration Is Finished! On September 21, 2012 at 23:59 registration for participation in the Automated Trading Championship 2012 was finished. Some participants were looking forward to this moment, while others were saddened as they have not managed to polish their trading robots. Expert Advisors are not accepted anymore and the EA automated verification system is stopped. Now it is impossible to apply for participation in the Championship. During the remaining days until the start of the contest the Expert Advisors and personal details will be checked manually. The multiple registrations facts will be revised as well. Applications for participation in the Championship were accepted for almost 4 months. More than 3,670 applicants have registered on the website for that period exceeding the previous year's results by half. It's interesting to know that for the last three years not only has increased the number of applications for participation in the Championship, but also the number of countries from which these application have been submitted: <ul><li>ATC 2010 - 90</li><li>ATC 2011 - 101</li><li>ATC 2012 - 118</li></ul>Automated Trading Championship 2012 with $80,000 of prize money will start in less than a week. Soon we will find out whose trading robots will take part in the Championship! Read the full article on the Championship's website - Registration Is Finished!