About Us
Our Team
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. |
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Bruce joined the Fresh Brewed Media team in the spring of 2006. After earning a B.S. in Accounting from Indiana State University, he worked in the public accounting field for several years. Bruce then switched gears, moving into an account executive position with a national sub-prime lending company. Mr. Frey went on to earn a Masters in Business Administration from James Madison University before returning to accounting, this time in a private capacity. He spent time working for production and distribution companies in the electronics and beverage industries before joining Fresh Brewed Media as a writer and analyst. Bruce starts and ends every trade decision with the numbers. He believes risk is unavoidable in the stock market and needs to be compensated for with return. He excels at selecting trades which achieve the maximum return while minimizing risks in volatile market environments. Since the numbers can only tell you so much about an investment, he doesn't stop there. He is also committed to researching the company behind the trade to find the right balance between risk and return. Mr. Frey's goal is to help investors discover how to use his strategies to invest smarter and grow their portfolios on their own terms, no matter which way the market winds are blowing. Bruce creates market updates and trade ideas for Standard & Poor's Options Research, manages several model options portfolios including the MarketSmart Perfect Trade portfolio, and writes articles and market updates for InvestorsObserver.com. |
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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. |
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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. His goal is to provide timely news on both the micro and macro level and to find ways for investors to profit from current market conditions, using options to limit downside risk and protect against market volatility. |
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David is an options analyst and writer who has worked with Fresh Brewed Media since 2007. He managed several model portfolios at Investors Observer and has a passion for finding trades on high-performing stocks that offer attractive returns with plenty of downside protection. While David is not afraid of numbers, he likes to look at the fundamentals of a stock when determining the best way to play it. David earned his undergraduate degree in US history from the University of Florida and a Master of Arts in history at the University of Virginia. He is currently an MBA candidate at the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. |
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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. |
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Featured Contributor |
Since 2003, Henry has been President and Chief Investment Officer responsible for managing all client accounts at ELF Capital Management, LLC. From 1998 to 2003, Henry was CFO and a Director of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company - the entity responsible for managing the University of Virginia's endowment. At UVIMCO, Henry reviewed staff's external manager due diligence efforts. He also negotiated for them a $230 million notional total return swap, as a hedge, which was later presented as case study by Goldman Sachs' equity derivatives group. Prior to that, Henry was COO and Product Development Director for Kidder Peabody Asset Management's structured products group where he was responsible for the formation and maintenance of more than 24 alternative investment companies. He also oversaw a combined $6 billion out of the firm's $26 billion assets under management. After Kidder, Henry established an offshore investment and fund administration company to handle leveraged CDO funds left over from KPAM. |
Victor Schiller |
After attaining an Engineering degree from the University of Illinois and a Masters in Business Administration from DePaul University, Mr. Schiller spent nearly twenty years battling it out in the trenches of the high-tech computer software and hardware world. He started with the nuts and bolts of Research and Development, rose through the ranks of Marketing to the CEO position of a leading computer software publisher, and ran the Eclipse Division for Phoenix Technologies. Mr. Schiller then shifted his efforts to Fresh Brewed Media, with its suite of Internet publications focused on equity option strategies. Of course he uses options to hedge the portfolios he manages and to generate additional returns. He uses the proprietary real-time software to identify, track, and manage over 500 constantly changing option and stock positions. |
Company Info
Investors Observer is an investment research firm focused on the U.S. equities and options markets. Our unique set of analytical tools, screening techniques, rigorous research methods along with a committed staff of analysts, writers and editors provide solid information to help our clients and subscribers make the best investment decisions possible.
The company launched its first portfolios in December 2002 and currently serves a subscriber base well over 300,000 investors who receive our various investment newsletters, market research, daily reports, and portfolio services.
| Investors Observer was selected by Standard & Poor's, the world's leading producer of independent investment research, to provide content for their new equity options investment research service. Standard & Poor's Options Strategies(TM) combines Standard & Poor's STARS (Stock Appreciation Ranking System) rankings of Standard & Poor's U.S. Equity Research analysts with the experience of InvestorsObserver.com to provide investment strategies and risk management tools to financial advisors who currently utilize, or are planning to incorporate, equity options in their investment management activities for their clients. |  |
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Investors Observer is owned and operated by Fresh Brewed Media (www.FreshBrewedMedia.com) a holding company for a series of web sites providing unique financial content to investors at all levels. Our services fill the immediate needs of individual investors, hedge fund manages, brokers, and institutions. Fresh Brewed Media has been involved with sites providing essential tools and information to investors since 1999. Here’s a quick summary timeline of company events: |
| 2010 |
FBM News uses a unique approach that has a bias to actionable news, alerts, strategies, commentary and ideas to leverage the benefits of hedged investments to reduce risk while maximizing potential profit. It is a conservative approach that makes FBM News content unique compared to any other financial information provider. The company’s content offers a unique perspective, analysis and actionable ideas unavailable elsewhere… and it is served up with fresh attitude, bold perspective and at times a little bit of humor. FBM News uses a mix of traditional fundamental and technical stock analysis combined with strategies that give investors a chance to win no matter which way the market goes. FBM News analysts provide content that goes out to over 3,000 news, financial, and brokerage web sites. |
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| 2009 |
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| 2008 | Investors Observer and Standard & Poor’s sign optionsXpress to offer Option Strategy reports to their 300,00+ customers. Investors Observer and Standard & Poor’s completes deal with LPL Financial to offer a customized Option Strategies Service to their customers through its network of 11,000+ Financial Advisors. |
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| 2007 | Fresh Brewed Media files a patent for key technologies used to analyze the markets and produce news stories faster and more accurately. The Market Intelligence Center exceeds 200,000 registered users. |
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| 2006 | Fresh Brewed Media files a patent for key technology used to identify optimal conservative trades with the highest probability of making profits while minimizing risk. | |
| 2005 | Fresh Brewed Media signs a deal with Standard & Poor’s to provide all analysis, reporting, and delivery of equity options content for S&P and their leading customers including Deutsche Bank, Wachovia, Fidelity Investments and many more. Seven Summits Strategic Investments is registered with the SEC and NASD as a Registered Investment Advisor. Research from the company is used on over 3,000 web sites. |
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| 2004 | The SmartReadMX technology that reads and rates company news is patented and the Market Intelligence Center web site is released. | |
| 2002 | Fresh Brewed Media launches Investors Observer (www.iotogo.com) site for individual investors. The site now has over 300,000 registered subscribers. | |
| 2001 | Fresh Brewed Media starts the electronic publications of its Morning Update which is distributed to over 3,000 web pages including Microsoft Network, Yahoo!, and Charles Schwab. Fresh Brewed Media starts the electronic publication of the Investors Keyhole daily reports which provide breaking news and tips from a network of floor traders, company executives, experts, analysts and timely information resources. This service provides over sixty trade ideas each month with a documented profitable trade rate of over 90% |
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| 1999 | The internet boom is in full swing. Fresh Brewed Media makes strategic investments in key technologies designed to provide a unique edge for investors. | |
Investors Keyhole celebrates its 90 month anniversary. Since 2002 InvestorsKeyhole has provided breaking news and tips from a network of floor traders, company executives, experts, analysts, and timely information resources. The InvestorsKeyhole service is updated throughout the day to provide the information investors need to trade smarter... Not just the same old news... After 90 months this service has maintained almost a 90% success rate for the trade ideas selected for subscribers and some trades have surpassed a 120% annualized return. InvestorsKeyhole strives to provide information, tips and insight that you won't see anywhere else. InvestorsKeyhole analysts dig in, ask questions, and use a network of resources to identify market direction before the open, focus in on specific investment opportunities, and uncover hidden nuggets before they show up on your cable business channel. And investors won't have to wade through a sea of ads and commentator noise because our concise format puts the information you need right on your computer display.
Investors Observer and Standard & Poor’s close agreement to supplied Investors News with critical daily reports on leading stocks. Since 1998, InvestmentNews has been delivering news and analysis essential to the business of financial advisers. The company produces a weekly newspaper, which combines comprehensive news with accurate, independent reporting on the entire financial services industry, provides financial advisers with insight into the market unavailable in any other publication. Readers have come to rely on InvestmentNews for up-to-date market information on the stories and events affecting their clients' investments, making them the number one source of news to the financial adviser community. In addition to news, InvestmentNews organizes a number of webcasts and conferences throughout the year, bringing together our readers with key industry experts. Topics are industry-specific, developed specifically for financial advisers, and designed to help guide them with the best way to grow their practices. Our events are highly interactive and serve as great networking opportunities.
Fresh Brewed Media Financial News Service surpasses 2,000 daily news stories and PDF reports. FBM News is an XML news feed of all Fresh Brewed Media’s content produced each trading days. 
The Amazon.com Kindle electronic reader version of our daily Investors Observer Market Alerts are released. Up to thirty alerts a day are provided and include actionable news, insights and intelligence that can make a difference. Breaking news and tips from a network of floor traders, company executives, experts, analysts and timely information resources. Updated throughout the trading day. Full stories are provided and updated wirelessly throughout the day. The Kindle is the largest selling electronic book and periodical reader with a fast growing user base. Kindle owners can order books and periodicals like The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal to be automatically wirelessly sent to their Kindle. To see our Amazon Kindle page go to 
The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) begins using Investors Observer market commentary on their web page. This equity option strategy commentary is made up of articles written for new to advanced investors. Subjects addressed include topics such as the use of ETFs (Electronic Traded Funds), stocks on the move, sector strategies, market trends, and the potential effects of politics on the market. Each article covers the subject with a concise overview then demonstrates a specific option strategy using a live trade example. 
TD Ameritrade releases Standard & Poor's / Investors Observer Options Reports, S&P/InvestorKeyhole Daily Reports, and Optimal Trade Finder content and technology on the TD Ameritrade website. TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation, through its brokerage subsidiaries, provides a dynamic balance of investment products and services that make it the investment firm of choice for millions of retail investor and independent registered investment advisor clients. Listed by Forbes as one of America's best big companies, the Company offers a full spectrum of investment services, including a leading active trader program, intuitive long-term investment solutions and a national branch system, as well as relationships with one of the largest independent RIA networks. 
Fidelity Investments releases Standard & Poor's / Investors Observer Options Reports, S&P/InvestorKeyhole Daily Reports, and Optimal Trade Finder content and technology on the Fidelity website. Fidelity Investments is one of the world's largest providers of financial services, with custodied assets of over $2.5 trillion, including managed assets of over $1.2 trillion as of November 30, 2008. Fidelity offers investment management, retirement planning, brokerage, and human resources and benefits outsourcing services to 24 million individuals and institutions as well as through 5,500 financial intermediary firms.
