Louis Diamond Quoted – By Miriam Rozen, Financial Advisors IQ – Morgan Stanley has told its financial advisors that any client referrals coming from its E*Trade unit will go to a pre-selected set of 500 teams, a source familiar with the matter says.
By Mindy Diamond – For some time now, the wirehouses have largely been considered persona non grata amongst a large swath of the advisor population. Assuming that there were no real differences amongst them, a majority of advisors who changed firms in the past 5 years opted for almost anything but the biggest brokerages. For example, one industry report states that from 2014–18, nearly $260B in assets left the wirehouses for other platforms.
February 20, 2020 – Louis Diamond Quoted, InvestOrbit – With its purchase of ETrade Economic, Morgan Stanley is expanding its online and alleged self-directed investment platform for the less than ultra rich. For years, the large wirehouses like Morgan Stanley have been pressing brokers to stop working with less rewarding clients, or those with assets lower than $250, 000 to $500, 500. But through platforms like ETrade or Merrill Edge, those customers still have a home at a full-service broker agent, one recruiter noted.
By Mindy Diamond – Over the years, there have been many signs and signals sent from firms that advisors may have dismissed or ignored. As such, they also missed a chance to discern the real meaning or intent—and their opportunity to take a more strategic and proactive stance.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Bruce Kelly, InvestmentNews – With its purchase of ETrade Financial, Morgan Stanley is expanding its online and so-called self-directed investment platform for the less than ultra rich.
For years, the large wirehouses like Morgan Stanley have been pushing brokers to stop working with less profitable clients, or those with assets less than $250,000 to $500,000. But through platforms like ETrade or Merrill Edge, those clients still have a home at a full-service brokerage, one recruiter noted.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Ian Wenik, Citwire – Fidelity Investments isn’t taking the Charles Schwab-TD Ameritrade mega-merger lying down. Though the $26 billion all-stock deal – officially revealed on Monday – will create a combined firm that Cerulli Associates estimates will custody 51% of RIA assets, Fidelity has already shown signs of how it will respond to its new role of the next-biggest option for advisors by default.
By Louis Diamond, Citywire – Charles Schwab’s announcement on Tuesday to eliminate trading fees on stocks, ETFs, and options sent waves through the media and soon after pushed competitors TD Ameritrade and E*TRADE to follow suit. The industry still awaits news on the other two largest RIA custodians – Pershing Advisor Solutions and Fidelity Custody & Clearing Services – and how they will respond to Schwab’s strategy. Yet many in the wealth management space – regardless of channel affiliation – are left wondering what this really means for their businesses.
