Sep 01, 2009

A ten-year veteran of a large wirehouse firm says he's solicited regularly about switching firms. I pay attention to the deals. I'm curious to know what they're offering. I'm not really ready to move, but they keep trying, he says. Of course they...

Advisors Are Going Independent

Sep 01, 2009

The independent channel has long been advertised as The Next Big Thing. With its 95,000 or so advisors, the independents are the largest subset in the industry. But the great diaspora of wirehouse advisors going indie never materialized. It is...

Independent Brokers Fear Congress May Re-Write Laws On Independent Contractors

Aug 28, 2009

Recently introduced legislation threatens to change the IRS rules on independent contractor worker classification and the Financial Service Group (FSI) is worried.

Bove Smites Morgan Stanley’s Strategy, But Bullish On Brokerage Unit

Aug 26, 2009

Morgan Stanley’s recent move to increase trading risk and add traders a la Goldman Sachs is a just another bad strategy in a long line of lousy executions by management, says Dick Bove, vocal analyst of Rochdale Securities in a note released...

Madoff Stricken With Cancer

Aug 24, 2009

The New York Post reports today that Bernie Madoff is dying of cancer. According to an inmate at the North Carolina prison, Madoff is telling everyone that he doesn’t have long to live.

Merrill Is Not Desperate—The Race For Top Advisors Continues

Aug 17, 2009

Merrill Lynch is embarking on an aggressive “push” to hire financial advisors, according to the Financial Times. The story says that since the signing bonuses are greater than those handed out in the bull market of 2006 and 2007, it is...

Wirehouse to Wirehouse Switching Sinks

Aug 11, 2009

Fewer and fewer financial advisors are leaving one wirehouse for another these days, according to data from Discovery.

UBS Close to Deal With Bob McCann, Reorg Under Way

Aug 05, 2009

UBS has stepped up its courtship of former Merrill executive Bob McCann, discussions that began in June, according to a story in the Financial Times. If he is hired, he would replace Marten Hoekstra, head of UBS’s wealth management business...

Dan Sontag Departs Merrill Lynch

Aug 04, 2009

Much beloved by Merrill financial advisors, Dan Sontag is stepping down as head of Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. The news of his departure comes just a day after it was announced that Sallie Krawcheck, the former head of wealth...

The List: Top 100 Independent Advisors in America

Aug 01, 2009

METHODOLOGY...