Nick Atkeson and Andrew Houghton (RSS)

Nick Atkeson and Andrew Houghton work together to identify options trading opportunities on the institutional level. They are the editors of Big Money Options, an options trading service that provides one to three specific, easy-to-execute trades each week that will double your money (or better), twice a month, on average, throughout the year.

Like most trading services, Nick and Andrew start with their own proprietary tracking software called "Big Money Radar Alert." After all, with 2,000 stocks trading options contracts -- and millions of contracts being traded each day -- scanning the market in real-time and targeting trades that stand out as "unusual" is impossible without a big investment in technology. To find the very best options trades, Nick and Andrew watch volume, and they also delve into issues of delta, expiration dates, persistence, intensity, absolute and relative volatility, trade history and many more key characteristics.

But they don't just look at the numbers. They talk to the people making and executing the trades. That's right: They schmooze with the actual traders on the floors of the option exchanges to get their professional opinion about the truth behind the trades. The numbers alone often lie, and reporting errors are frequent. So they go the extra mile to get on-the-ground intelligence before telling you to pull the trigger on any trade.

Andrew D. Houghton

Andrew Houghton has spent the past 14 years in the investment industry. He is a partner at Delta Investment Management, a registered investment advisory firm in California.

Prior to Delta Investment Management, Andrew was a partner in Delta Force Capital, a quantitative derivatives hedge fund from May 2006 to April 2009. From April 2005 to April 2006, he was a Managing Director of ThinkEquity Partners LLC, with research sales responsibilities to many of the largest mutual funds and hedge funds on the West Coast.

Between May 2003 and April 2005, he was a member of Susquehanna International Group LLC, a leading derivatives trading firm. At Susquehanna, Andrew was responsible for developing an institutional sales presence in the West, marketing the firm's equity research products and analyzing and marketing options market intelligence. From 1996 through April 2003, he was a principal of Banc of America Securities LLC and its predecessor firms. Prior to his career in the investment industry, Andrew served as the president of 1576 Restaurant Corp., which owned and operated Dakota, a New York restaurant.

He holds a B.A. in economics from Boston University.

Nick Atkeson

Nick Atkeson is a partner at Delta Investment Management LLC, a registered investment advisory firm headquartered in San Francisco. He has been advising institutional fund managers for more than a decade and was a senior portfolio manager and founder of Delta Force Capital LLC, a San Francisco-based hedge fund from 2006 through spring 2009.

Prior to founding Delta Investment Management LLC, Nick was a Managing Director at Banc of America Securities and ThinkEquity Partners LLC. Additionally, he helped build the institutional sales team on the West Coast for Susquehanna International Group LLC, the largest options market-making firm in the United States.

Prior to his career in the investment business, Nick spent several years in the railroad industry, where he served as the president of the Texas Southern Railroad. Additionally, he founded an electronics company that he sold to the Blackfox Technology Group in 1996.

He holds degrees from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and from Haverford College, Phi Beta Kappa.