Held annually since 2000, the annual Trading Agent Competition provides a forum for designers to evaluate programmed trading techniques in a challenging market scenario. Using three years of tournament data, the authors attempt to evaluate competitors' trading competence and progress in the 2002 tournament and over time. Although it's difficult to assess absolute individual performance measures, we can directly analyze relative and overall market performance measures. This article quantifies the TAC travel market's effectiveness in terms of allocative efficiency and finds improvement within and between tournaments. Comparing these results with alternative allocation benchmarks lets us calibrate this efficiency and identify opportunities for further gains.