Autonomous bidding agents in the trading agent competition

Designing agents that can bid in online simultaneous auctions is a complex task. The authors describe task-specific details and strategies of agents in a trading agent competition. More specifically, the article describes the task-specific details of and the general motivations behind, the four top-scoring agents. First, we discuss general strategies used by most of the participating agents. We then report on the strategies of the four top-placing agents. We conclude with suggestions for improving the design of future trading agent competitions.