Financial advisors expect good things from 2010, according to a recent Aite Group report. On average, they project growth of 18 percent in book of business and revenues over the year. Independent RIAs have the most optimstic outlook, projecting revenue growth of around 24 percent this year. Wirehouse advisors are the most pessimistic of any in the business, projecting revenue growth of just 13.4 percent. Is that pessimism due to a more clear-eyed view of the markets, or due to last year's loss of advisors and assets to independent RIA firms? Hard to say. Changes in market share were not as dramatic as you might think. Wirehouse firms lost just under a percentage point of their share of wealth management industry client assets in 2009, which fell 0.9 percent, while RIAs, online brokerages and self-clearing retail brokerage firms like LPL, Ameriprise and Edward Jones, all gained a sliver of market share (up 0.5 percent, 1.5 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively). But wirehouses still dominate, with 38 percent of the market, versus 15 percent for self-clearing firms, 12 percent for RIAs and 17 percent for online brokerages.
