Mindy Diamond Quoted
By Lisa Beilfuss
Client assets at Edward Jones have surpassed $1 trillion, the regional brokerage said, as it competes in recruiting against Wall Street titans like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
The recruiting retrenchment at big firms “is an opportunity for a firm like Edward Jones to compete,” said Mindy Diamond, president and founder of Diamond Consultants, a recruiting firm for financial advisers. “The playing field has been leveled,” she said, with some veteran brokers now within Edward Jones’s reach.
How far into big-city markets Edward Jones can reach remains to be seen. “They have a better shot now than they had a year ago,” Ms. Diamond said. “Edward Jones appeals to a very niche kind of financial adviser,” typically someone who isn’t in a major city, she said, and so the firm isn’t a “major player” when it comes to recruiting.