All about Automated Trading Championship: Interviews with the Participants of Championship 2007

 
Two years have passed since the first Automated Trading Championship. A lot of interesting information has been accumulated for this time: statistical reports, interviews with traders, useful articles. We present to you a selection of these materials that are divided into several parts. The present one contains interviews with the Participants of Championship 2007.

The published interviews of Championship 2007 bear the stamp of the results obtained during the preceding contest. The first Championship evoked a wide response on the internet and in printings. The leading developer of the MetaQuotes Software Corp. tells about changes made to the forthcoming Automated Trading Championship 2007. We put our questions to the developer of a well-known indicating complex ZUP, Eugeni Neumoin (nen) and spoke to an equity trader, Alexander Pozdnishev (AlexSilver).

Besides, we interviewed the Winners of ATC 2006 and the leaders of the current Championship. Many traders told in their interviews that they were using rather simple strategies that had shown interesting results. Some of those ideas were borrowed from the experience of working with stock markets. We can see that trading shares has much in common with trading securities or options.

Video Interview with Stanislav Starikov

Stansilav is a member of the Championship Jury and acceptance of Expert Advisors is one of his duties. In his interview, he tells about registration problems that took place during Championship'2006 and about innovations made for the Automated Trading Championship 2007.

Interview with Rich (Roman Zamozhniy)

We had an interview with the Winner of the Automated Trading Championship 2006 – Mr. Roman Zamozhniy, known under the nickname Rich. Regardless his winning in the last-year Championship, Roman completely redesigned his trading strategy. Roman is not afraid of the competition. He feels he fights against the market, and not against other Participants.

Interview with Thomas Bopp

Thomas Bopp is the Jury Member representing the TRADERS' magazine. In his interview, he tells where and how he studied technical analysis, as well as about his work at Der Zyklus-Analyst. Thomas has also revealed some details of his own Expert Advisor and his estimation of the Automated Trading Championship 2006.

Interview with Ahmed Soliman (CodersGuru)

Ahmed Soliman known as CodersGuru, was not in the Top Three of the previous Championship. He tells in his interview what lessons he learned at the previous competition and what, in his opinion, determines success of any Expert Advisor. According to him, effective money management can compensate many errors in an Expert Advisor. At this Championship, Ahmed will submit an unconventional Expert Advisor based on principles other than technical analysis...

Interview with Andrei Moraru (enivid)

The success of an EA is quite easy – a competent money-management strategy and stable forecasting of successful entry and exit points. If the first one is usually the result of a trader’s experience and calculations, the second is the result of long EA testing as on the old market data, so on demo accounts in real-time model. The attempts to create an automated Expert Advisor without these two qualities are doomed to failure.

Interview with Al Parsai

I would say while Money Management is a very important element, a complete EA is the one that consists of a successful strategy, risk management, and money management. While without money management the odds of winning are very low, you also need to have a correct understanding of risk and strategy. The bottom line is that they all go hand in hand.

Interview with Andrey Vedikhin

The most common error of traders is that they try to write a universal Expert Advisor, which would remain profitable regardless of the current market state. In my opinion, the simplest and most effective solution would be to diversify trading tactics.

Video Interview with Rashid Umarov

The main conclusion is that it is insufficient to have a profitable strategy: it is necessary to strengthen its advantages and smooth its disadvantages. This is the point in money management: You should gain the largest profit from your approach, your Expert Advisor, your system with minimal risk and in maximal amounts, without being short of it. This is the most important thing, to my mind.

Interview with Alexander Pozdnishev (AlexSilver)

To get into details of rather simple principles on which this strategy Silver-channel works, it is necessary to go back to the sources of its creation. I traded using indicator of Ishimoku in 2003. However, I faced the problem of markets going from flat state to trends and back...

Interview with Eugeni Neumoin (nen)

The advantage of graphical tools is in their plainness, accuracy, good ability to predict things... I mean one can predict further behavior of the market with higher probability.

Interview with Nikolay (zona)

A computer makes decisions without any hesitations and much sooner than a man. Well, one does not become conscience-stricken if the deposit is depleted, in case the Expert Advisor is unsuccessful. An EA is, of course, tested on a demo account and then tries to trade using real quotes.

Interview with Alexey Kirienko (Axelforex)

An Expert Advisor must make profit grow and cut losses equally stably and accurately.

Interview with Drazen Ziskovic (draz)

There’s no doubt that weak money-management can be your worst enemy when trading.

Interview with Michael Mayson (mmayson)

I thought that my EA would be successful, but I was unsure about the opposition, so I really had no expectations of being #1.

Interview with Boris Vilenski (bablokos)

I think, for being successful, one should lead one's own way and search new solutions.

Interview with Matthew Brown (Matmospheric)

There is no added safety to keep the account from a forced closing; you just have to trust that the EA.

Interview with Tai Elliott (MiltonWaddams)

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.

Interview with Alexei Ermolaev (Zyx40)

I began trading with ready-made indicator-based Expert Advisors, but I learned very soon that they did not have prospects. The matter is that an indicator sees events in the market very limitedly. It does not work at the points where it diverges from the market.

Interview with Olexandr Topchylo (Better)

Olexandr performed unsuccessfully in the last-year Championship, and this failure was the making of him. He learned his lesson and became the leader of Championship 2007 with a huge equity!

Interview with William Boatright (wackena)

The EA works virtually the same on any chart timeframe as utilized timeframes are hard coded in the EA. I find this makes the EA more reliable.

Interview with Maxim Kondratyuk (maxfade)

The EA tries to catch a “trend” of 100 points. This is why it does not “see” the global trend. And another thing, it hates it when a pair grows without strong rollbacks.

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