Brent is an options analyst, writer, and editor who has been with the Fresh Brewed Media family for seven years. He manages several successful model options portfolios for Investors Observer including the 3-Way Managed Risk portfolio, in addition to writing articles geared toward helping the individual investor trade options in a safe and profitable manner.

Brent is at heart a numbers guy who lives to dig through option chains and sift through hundreds of potential trades to find the best ones available. He received his undergraduate degree from Drew University in Computer Science and has been instrumental in the development of Investors Observer's proprietary options research technology that can help identify ideal options trades for almost any stock. These tools are used by investors at firms like Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, and Ameriprise through Investors Observer's partnership with Standard & Poor's.

He is one of the more conservative members of our team and looks for trades and strategies with a very low possibility of losing money, but still have returns well-better than the average index fund or high-yield CD. Brent likes to trade covered calls in his retirement account as a way to increase his profits on relatively stable dividend-paying stocks.

His goal is to help individual investors discover the power of using options to protect themselves from market volatility without giving up the potential for profits.

Bobby is a former journalist who worked at a mid-sized daily newspaper for several years before shifting gears and spending the years before and during the financial crisis writing about financial institutions. 

This experience gave him a profound understanding of the imbalance between the way institutions invest and what individual investors do with their money. While individuals can’t become too big to fail or borrow interest free from the Federal Reserve, they can use some of the tactics that institutional traders use to make money regardless of market conditions.

Like everyone at Investors Observer, Bobby is interested in finding ways to make solid returns without losing money. While not always a huge risk taker, he is not afraid to go against the grain for the right balance of risk and reward.

He manages the Dividends Plus model portfolio for Standard & Poor's Options Research and the MarketSmart10% Hedged portfolio at Investors Observer. He writes feature articles focused on helping experienced options investors find outsized returns as well as timely trade ideas and updates found in the InvestorsKeyhole service.

Bobby also serves as a writer and editor for MarketIntelligenceCenter.com, where the focus is on making trades on the day’s events without follow the crowd.

Michael is a financial writer that has been with the Fresh Brewed Media Family for 8 years. Over the course of his tenure with Fresh Brewed Media, he has worn many hats, including portfolio manager, options analyst, and writer.

Michael received his undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech in Accounting and got his start in finance working as a stock trader for six years at Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, VA.

His first five years at Fresh Brewed Media were spent writing and managing portfolios, but he has since moved on to focus on financial writing, using his market experience to present the news in a way that the average investor can digest. His articles typically cover big-picture events and forecasting what impact they will have on the stock market. In addition to writing for Fresh Brewed Media, Michael also wrote for AOL's BloggingStocks for 3 years, focusing most of his attention on the energy and technology sectors.

Michael is not adverse to high-risk investing when he believes the risks are worth the reward, but in adverse market conditions he takes a more conservative approach. His believes a focus on high-dividend investing offers the safest play given the uncertain global economy.

Mr. Kersten is an investor, writer and analyst who likes to dig down into the risk and reward of complex option strategies. He has managed portfolios, blogged about stocks, helped develop proprietary options reports, composed stock reports, conducted online webinars and written extensively about options since 2004. 

Kevin's favorite investment strategies include bull-put credit spreads and covered calls. He loves taking a complex strategy and breaking it down in an easy-to-understand way so investors new to options trading can understand the risk, rewards, and returns.

Mr. Kersten has a bachelor in Business Administration from University of South Florida where he minored in economics. After working as a manager at a fortune 500 company for a few years he realized he loved playing around with numbers, in addition to people-watching. Economics is right up his alley, since it is the study of how people utilize resources and behave in the free markets. He enjoys watching the numbers come in, spotting trends, and looking for ways to position investments to minimize risk. While Mr. Kersten realizes there are risks in life, he is very calculating about which risks are right to accept.

Kevin has traveled the globe extensively, giving him an outside perspective on US and International markets. When he is not playing around with spreadsheets, his hobbies include camping, hunting, chess, and photography.

Dan started his trading career on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) as an equity options market maker. He also traded agricultural options and futures on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). In 2005, Dan joined CBOE’s Options Institute and began teaching both basic and advanced trading concepts to retail traders, brokers, institutional traders, financial planners and advisors, money managers, employees of the SEC and Federal Reserve Bank, and market makers. In addition to his work with the CBOE, he taught options strategies at the Options Industry Council (OIC). Dan has been featured on television and radio and has written numerous articles in the financial press. Dan can be reached at dan@markettaker.com. He can be followed on Twitter.

That would explain why he bought housing before the 2004 rise and shorted sub-prime and big housing names before the 2007 fall . . . all while the "experts" suggested doing the opposite.

In 1999, Ian left a job in public relations because he couldn't stand saying good things about companies he didn't like, and he's been a financial analyst ever since. His passion for Wall Street, technical analysis and the idea of fast money fueled the move.

Since then, Ian has written numerous articles on topics as diverse as trading news, mergers and acquisitions, crude oil, housing, and emerging market opportunities.

He's appeared in Investor's Business Daily and Forbes.com and has been a frequent guest on Money Matters with Barry Armstrong, Stock Dr. with Lee Seiler, and On the Money with Mike Stein.

Nowadays, Ian relies on technical and fundamental analysis for investment decisions, and has leveraged his options and stock trading passion to fuel his search for quick profits, which is just what you can expect him to deliver to his readership.

1947: Born-Pittsburgh, Pa
1965-1969: Pennsylvania State University, BA degree.
1970-1978: Builder
1978-1990: Securities industry. Firms included First Southeastern, E.G. Francis, First Southeastern, Smith Barney and Oppenheimer.
1990-Present: Computrade Systems, Inc. Co-founder and Director of Research. Computrade is the developer of Market Edge, a comprehensive, computerized research web site, which is accessed by individuals, brokers and institutions throughout the world. As Director of Research, Tom writes Market Edge's 'Market Letter' and 'On The Edge' plus the Dr. Market Edge series. Both the Market Letter and On The Edge provide in-depth market analysis based on three market timing models that he developed. Tom also has recently finished a new book, 'Trade Like A Pro' which is a systematic, disciplined approach to the stock market. Based on technical analysis, this book addresses five topics that he believes are critical to having success in the market. These subjects include market timing, stock selection, timing entry and exit points, protecting positions and money management.