[quote=xej1984]

 c'mon bb you already knew that when you woke up this morning.

[/quote]

Arguing with you is like arguing with my wife.  Even when I'm right, I'm wrong.

And why the heII do you keep calling me BB?

saw an old M.A.S.H. rerun (sounds redundant) where Goober from Mayberry played an Arkansas hick doctor who couldn't remember BJ Honyecut's name called him everything but BJ.  He portrayed a great surgeon but was a dimwitted social outcast at the 4077........ you're probably a great FA but otherwise .....

we both have agendas and when confronted with a logical and opposing opinion to your own you revert to child like responses (I do it to just egg you on ....seems to work doesn't it?)

have a great weekend BB

That's funny. (I would put an emoticon with clapping hands here, but this forum does not have one... geeze)

Now this is funny!  A quote from Weddle.....

He also defended the firm's fee platform, saying it is “the best advisory platform in the business.” Over the past 24 months, the firm has expanded that platform to $35 billion in assets, he said.

One account type makes it the best??  The kool aid is flowing from the top for sure!

[quote=xej1984]

saw an old M.A.S.H. rerun (sounds redundant) where Goober from Mayberry played an Arkansas hick doctor who couldn't remember BJ Honyecut's name called him everything but BJ.  He portrayed a great surgeon but was a dimwitted social outcast at the 4077........ you're probably a great FA but otherwise .....

we both have agendas and when confronted with a logical and opposing opinion to your own you revert to child like responses (I do it to just egg you on ....seems to work doesn't it?)

have a great weekend BB

[/quote]

Well, that is....funny....I guess.

[quote=xej1984]that's right spaceballs. and everything you state is the whole truth and 'nuttin but da truth.  You and Weddle share all sorts of little secrets.....

take the two articles the one in RR and the one I posted a link to.  they are only days apart so why the difference in numbers yes I'm splitting hairs but why would the Managing partner be quoted on 12,600 FAs in one and a few days later 12,000 (unless the firm has either lost or gained that many in those few days). 

One of the biggest things I have against my one time employer is the lack of consistency.  Whether it be from HR, training, compliance, fsd  down through the channels to the RL and then to me.  And of course us "dark siders" are the only ones that put any sort of spin on the story.

And then once we do decide to leave how many of us were made the target of an insuation smear?  Left under some sort of shady issue...compliance problem, we don't know where she went?  I heard he left the business.  They had money problems....etc etc then the TR tries to insinuate we've had them in some questionable produtcts, so why don't we correct that.  Yep your employer is darn perfect. [/quote]

You do realize that Weddle wasn't quoted as saying we have 12,600 FAs in that Investment News article, don't you?  See, in the English language, when someone gets quoted, they put these little "  " things around the words.  That way we, the readers, know that the words were actually spoken by the referenced person.  In the case of the Investment News article, there are no quotation marks around the sentence that referenced 12,600 FAs.   

To be fair, there are no quotation marks around Jim's comments in the Reg Rep article either.  However, the entire article is written so that we the readers know that Jim's comments are his own, and not the interpretation of the author of the article.  And Jim didn't say 12,000, he said "of our over 12,000 FAs".  Of course later in the article he uses 12,000 as a the divisor to figure out an attrition percentage.  Which, in this case turned out to make us look a bit worse than necessary.  But that's just math, you can figure that out.  You can call it inconsistency if you choose, but I'd call it convenience. 

I've never said Jones was a perfect place.  To my knowledge, none of us on this forum that represent Jones have said it's a perfect place.  We just believe that it's the right place for us for right now. 

I only disagree with  a few comments.

1. that the attrition numbers are well known throughout the firm. If you really try to get this answer you will be on the phone with someone explaining that they don't make that information public.

2. I personally do care about Canada because every dime we pour into that place is another dime that will be squeezed out of my !@#$!@.

However there certainly are some pros to working at Jones rather than a wire or bank. Everything in life is about pros and cons.

[quote=xej1984]

innocuous bulk,

nice ploy, deflect questions about your problem and reply with what others are doing.    How much has EJ lost on  CDOs?  SIVs? ARS?  I'm sorry how much?    If I was commenting on other firm's losses I would not be commenting about them on this thread or is that your idea of fuzzy logic?

I had a personal interest in the land north of the 49° parallel. is that okay with you bulkster.

Your firm lost $360 MILLION and you're concerned that I show an interest and that you don't? 

[/quote]

I was not deflecting, merely pointing out that all firms make mistakes and lose money.  My point is that the "$360 MM" we lost pales in comparison to the $'s lost on CDO's, SIVS & ARS at other firms.  Would you rather management made the mistake of investing money in more advisors (that may turn a profit yet) or lost it in the previously mentioned investments?  At the very least we haven't had to settle any lawsuits with our clients in regards to Canada. 

The answer to your question, to the best of my understanding, is $0 on all three counts.  And last I checked, we didn't lose "$360 MM".  We have been profitable in every quarter (trimester).

Realworld - The attrition numbers are delivered monthly to every member of the regional leadership team in every region.  That represents, I don't know, 10-15% of the brokers out there.  If you don't happen to be on the list, just ask a friend on the leadership team.  I would assume those numbers are somewhat guarded outside the firm, but are very easily obtained internally.  Now what happened to the 50% bonus bracket is another story....

hulk,

Add up the "profits"  (expenses) that your firm declared on international business lines for the last 16 years and that should be in excess of $360 Million.   I could see a few years of loss on new business lines but a decade or two to reach profitablity is perhaps questionable of the manangement they are under.  Especially if you are the second highest compensation as per the 10-K?

There will always be people that look to justify their actions. This is so much misspent energy.

There are so many inaccuracies in that article that it doesn't warrant our attention. Really? Jones doesn't offer mortgages or banking? I had clients using both when I left. They don't offer succession planning?My mentor enjoyed a nice succession plan. We're going to take at face value the competitors of Edward Jones (or people who do not benefit from a relationship with that large company), but not Jim Weddle?

I left Jones and still have nothing but good things to say about that company. I sure as poop won't spend any time validating my decision by tearing up their good name. From a strictly third party perspective, you'd have to believe the goodwill endemic to the name Edward Jones requires them to act in a certain way or lose incredible value.

All good points Lock.  It's interesting, a few years ago a friend of mine retired from Merrill (wow, actually about 5 years ago now).  He explained to me his succession plan at Merrill, and I explained ours.  As it turned out, ours was slightly better (I forget the differences, but they were very similar).  And he actually gave his busienss to his son - about $85mm AUM.  His son was about 35 at the time, and already had about $75mm.  He now has about 200mm AUM.  I have no idea how, if at all, the Merrill succession plan has changed.

Why do you equate Gary Reamey's compensation package with the profitability of Canada?  To my knowledge, his compensation isn't directly affected by anything other than the profitability of the FIRM.  The firm, as Hulk pointed out, has been profitable even with the Canadian operation factored in. 

Jones has only been there 16 years.  We've got 706 advisors up there.  How many of them have even had time to become profitable?  My guess is less than half.  And probably less than half of those are profitable enough to really matter.  In my opinion it's not indicitive of the management they are under, but rather just simply the way the business works.  It takes a lot of time to get a brand new division like that up to speed.  How many regions around the US do you think aren't profitable as a group?  I'd be suprised if mine is, and we've been in this county for 50 years.  I'd bet you could find more than 15 regions that are similar to mine.  Especially if you look up in the northeast or out west where we haven't had any offices for more than 15-20 years.  I think it's a similar approach with Canada.  The only difference is that you have to spell it out under the International line on the 10-k.  The unprofitable US regions all get lumped in with the profitable ones and nobody talks about it.   

So, under your logic, we should abandon all of those regions that have been around for a significant (which is open to interpretation) amount of time and just shut them down for the sake of the profitability of the firm.   Does that sound about right to you?     

Spiff,

I think you both make good points.  However, Canada (and the UK for that matter) are more stand-alone business units that need to be able to survive completely independant of the U.S. 

But you are right in the fact that Jones' business model takes a LONGGGG time to become profitable, and it currently requires large numbers of profitable offices to carry those that are unprofitable.  Typically, it is going to take an office 7-10 years (purely from scratch) to be making GOOD money for the firm.  Looking at my region, our average tenure is about 8-10 years (we have 22 FA's over 10 years, and only 7 over 15 years, and 35 are UNDER 3 years).  Our very first office (which is still the same FA) was only built 18 years ago.  So our demographics (if that's the proper term) are probably very similar to Canada.  We have a lot of guys in the 7-12 year mark really hitting their stride, but also a LOT of newbies.  So I am guessing our profit contribution to the firm is negative as a region (at least half are basically a drain on the region). 

But like you said, it's not like the firm is going to abandon our region.  I think the idea is that Jones analyzes all fo the typical metrics and determines when the region/country will be profitable.  Obviously, they did not see that happening in UK anytime soon (or at all).  From what I understood, it was simply the model itself the proved unsustainable in the UK, and it it almost didn't matter how many more office we had.  In Canada, it is more like an immature region of the US that simply needs more time and some more offices.  But once we are there, it will be self-sustaining. 

Jones has always professed that they KNOW it is a slow-growth model.  Organic growth can be painful.  They have made a conscious decision to not enter the bidding war for FA's.  It's a war that can't really be won, especially with our model.  But double-digit LP returns for 30 straight years means they have been doing something right.

Spaceman & B24,

Combine your last responses together and viola you get my point. 

"Why do you equate Gary Reamey's compensation package with the profitability of Canada?  To my knowledge, his compensation isn't directly affected by anything other than the profitability of the FIRM"

"I think you both make good points.  However, Canada (and the UK for that matter) are more stand-alone business units that need to be able to survive completely independant of the U.S."

Dr. 1994 still at it....

Bitter little man.

hey bb head,

great response, lost another fight to the little woman again?

Bitter probably, Little ... a long time ago.

Who said she was little?

You take life way too seriously man.

I don't know who said it but there are Lies, Dam* Lies and Statistics. 

The articles timing seems to coincide with the increase in standards.  Don't think for a second that EDJ is not counting on some "good" attrition over the next 12 months.  But the business model requires that adding three to one lost helps with good productive growth.  Look for a step back in growth between now and Fall '11, then a big jump forward with a higher per FA production.  Cutting the bottom 10% is not "culturally" acceptable, so let them cut themselves.