Daniel Yasharel learned his most important lesson about the financial advisory business even before he became a full-fledged member of it. It was 1992, and Yasharel was working as an insurance agent. He'd sold a policy to a client who called him...

Freedom has its price, the saying goes, and perhaps nowhere is that price more frequently calculated than in the brokerage industry. Year after year, captive financial advisors, dreaming of independence and of the promises of an untethered...

The brokerage business is good or better, at least. The market is climbing slowly, firms are showing a profit and hiring again (albeit after massive layoffs), and, according to industry studies, affluent investors are in search of advice. The bad...