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X
I saw a piece in the Journal today that blew my mind. After everything we’ve been through since the fall of 2007, retail stockbrokers have begun to leave their turrets in big numbers this spring:
From the Wall Street Journal via Barry Ritholtz:
In April, more than 2,800 people registered as brokers in the U.S. left the industry, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The total number of departures so far this year stands at 11,600. In 2002, the previous high-water mark for industry exits in the 15 years of data available from Finra, a total of 11,500 brokers left Wall Street.
Bad timing, guys.
“Our Thing” is just starting to get good again.
High net worth investors in America have woken up to the fact that their over-compensated, under-regulated hedge fund whiz kid manager is really just a bourgeois pig with a fancy degree, taking all of the credit (and profits) in good times and walking away in bad times.
Clients and wealthy people I speak with all over the country are shaking off the hedge fund/private equity hangover and looking to get back to basics…buying good companies when they’re cheap and selling them when they’re expensive, and that’s what brokers do.
I’m pretty proud of my corner of the industry in that we had absolutely NOTHING to do with the 2008 credit crunch, yet we were the guys and gals on the front lines day in and day out, holding our clients’ hands and making suggestions, under the worst possible stress imaginable.
We were the ones who took every freaked-out phone call and devised strategies to fix what wasn’t working on the fly when the world looked like it was coming to an end.
And now, the brokers and advisors who stuck by their clients instead of avoiding their calls or throwing in the towel are gonna get big and get paid. We deserve it.
And the “sexy” hedge funds, stuffed to the gills with bullsh#t derivatives and layers upon layers of leverage, have, for the most part, been defrocked. 80% of the Greenwich Emperors had no clothes, and they will never have money thrown at them like that again.
The young gunners didn’t know a damned thing, other than how to get a job at a hedge fund after spending 9 months on a trading desk.
You can take your black box quant formula and eat it, Chester. Transparent, vanilla investing is the new hotness.
Brokers and advisors thinking of departing the business: Look back at what you’ve already made it through over the last 2 years and think twice before abandoning your clients, who will look to you for guidance…now more than ever.
Full Story: Brokers Leave Wall Street (WSJ $ubscritpion req)
I have only been out of the wirte house world for 15 months, and what you describe of Brokers could not be farther from the real truth, that i witnessed for over 12 years. The prototypical wirehouse broker is an asset gathering autobot, with little if any knowledge of investing basics whatsoever, or even much concern for the client. It all revolves around asset gathering, and servicing the Branch manager to aid in asset gathering. The ultimate goal is then to parlay those assets into a 150% of trailing 12 months gross transitional bonus at the competing wirehouse. The average retail client got skewered most likeley worse than the averages by being placed into high fee “managed accounts”(read way over priced index funds) and held all the way to the bottom, if not worse. None if any are leaving, more likeley being starved out by being placed in the penalty box Retail did not create this mess, but they are far from laudatory in conduct. Love your posts otherwise
Ex
I have only been out of the wirte house world for 15 months, and what you describe of Brokers could not be farther from the real truth, that i witnessed for over 12 years. The prototypical wirehouse broker is an asset gathering autobot, with little if any knowledge of investing basics whatsoever, or even much concern for the client. It all revolves around asset gathering, and servicing the Branch manager to aid in asset gathering. The ultimate goal is then to parlay those assets into a 150% of trailing 12 months gross transitional bonus at the competing wirehouse. The average retail client got skewered most likeley worse than the averages by being placed into high fee “managed accounts”(read way over priced index funds) and held all the way to the bottom, if not worse. None if any are leaving, more likeley being starved out by being placed in the penalty box Retail did not create this mess, but they are far from laudatory in conduct. Love your posts otherwise
Ex
I have only been out of the wirte house world for 15 months, and what you describe of Brokers could not be farther from the real truth, that i witnessed for over 12 years. The prototypical wirehouse broker is an asset gathering autobot, with little if any knowledge of investing basics whatsoever, or even much concern for the client. It all revolves around asset gathering, and servicing the Branch manager to aid in asset gathering. The ultimate goal is then to parlay those assets into a 150% of trailing 12 months gross transitional bonus at the competing wirehouse. The average retail client got skewered most likeley worse than the averages by being placed into high fee “managed accounts”(read way over priced index funds) and held all the way to the bottom, if not worse. None if any are leaving, more likeley being starved out by being placed in the penalty box Retail did not create this mess, but they are far from laudatory in conduct. Love your posts otherwise
Ex
Interesting take. You’ll notice that I do not now and would not want to work at a “wirehouse”…as if those things even exist anymore.
During the last bull market, the wirehouses gave all the good IPOs to the hedge funds and institutions…retail brokers and their clients were ignored.
Combine that with the proprietary products these firms create that never work and the horrid sell-side research and you have to ask yourself, why would any registered rep who is serious about servicing his clientele work at a place like that?
thx for reading ex
Interesting take. You’ll notice that I do not now and would not want to work at a “wirehouse”…as if those things even exist anymore.
During the last bull market, the wirehouses gave all the good IPOs to the hedge funds and institutions…retail brokers and their clients were ignored.
Combine that with the proprietary products these firms create that never work and the horrid sell-side research and you have to ask yourself, why would any registered rep who is serious about servicing his clientele work at a place like that?
thx for reading ex
Interesting take. You’ll notice that I do not now and would not want to work at a “wirehouse”…as if those things even exist anymore.
During the last bull market, the wirehouses gave all the good IPOs to the hedge funds and institutions…retail brokers and their clients were ignored.
Combine that with the proprietary products these firms create that never work and the horrid sell-side research and you have to ask yourself, why would any registered rep who is serious about servicing his clientele work at a place like that?
thx for reading ex
J
The article you reference specifically mentions the diminished ranks at he wirehouse’s. Unfortunateley none are leaving voluntarily, but being forced out to feeed those one rung up. It is truly a wretched condition. Tired of fighting the “man” i now run my own RIA, and focus on making myself and clients money. Thanks for letting me vent.
J
The article you reference specifically mentions the diminished ranks at he wirehouse’s. Unfortunateley none are leaving voluntarily, but being forced out to feeed those one rung up. It is truly a wretched condition. Tired of fighting the “man” i now run my own RIA, and focus on making myself and clients money. Thanks for letting me vent.
J
The article you reference specifically mentions the diminished ranks at he wirehouse’s. Unfortunateley none are leaving voluntarily, but being forced out to feeed those one rung up. It is truly a wretched condition. Tired of fighting the “man” i now run my own RIA, and focus on making myself and clients money. Thanks for letting me vent.
As a current, and recovering former wirehouse broker, I see portfolios of new clients weekly that have been pummeled by every advisor using buy and hold or asset allocation or so called Modern Portfolio Theory which is about 90% of those in this business. Frankly, and not to sound mean, most all (and I imagine yourself) brokers were indeed holding your clients hands through all this because of your lack of recognition of the failure of all the previously mentioned methods. I use a simple process to move clients funds out of harms way and as a result have more business than I could imagine now. It didn’t work in the tech wreck, failed again during this downturn and will fail at the next bubble. Our industry needs to remove about 40% of capacity and relegate the dinosaurs out to pasture.
As a current, and recovering former wirehouse broker, I see portfolios of new clients weekly that have been pummeled by every advisor using buy and hold or asset allocation or so called Modern Portfolio Theory which is about 90% of those in this business. Frankly, and not to sound mean, most all (and I imagine yourself) brokers were indeed holding your clients hands through all this because of your lack of recognition of the failure of all the previously mentioned methods. I use a simple process to move clients funds out of harms way and as a result have more business than I could imagine now. It didn’t work in the tech wreck, failed again during this downturn and will fail at the next bubble. Our industry needs to remove about 40% of capacity and relegate the dinosaurs out to pasture.
As a current, and recovering former wirehouse broker, I see portfolios of new clients weekly that have been pummeled by every advisor using buy and hold or asset allocation or so called Modern Portfolio Theory which is about 90% of those in this business. Frankly, and not to sound mean, most all (and I imagine yourself) brokers were indeed holding your clients hands through all this because of your lack of recognition of the failure of all the previously mentioned methods. I use a simple process to move clients funds out of harms way and as a result have more business than I could imagine now. It didn’t work in the tech wreck, failed again during this downturn and will fail at the next bubble. Our industry needs to remove about 40% of capacity and relegate the dinosaurs out to pasture.
Agreed with Ex-wirehouse – many, if not most brokers I speak with daily are too worried about the daily grind to frankly have the time or inclination (to say nothing of knowledge, expertise, etc) needed to take care of their clients. I mean hell, when you have hundreds, if not thousands of relationships with say, hundred or so g’s, its just not logistically possible to provide the highest level of service to many of them, c’est la vie and such.
I spoke to a broker a few weeks ago who had both FAZ and FAS (same quantity) in both his qualified and non-qualified accounts. At best this would be a freaking retarded trade, and that’s before you run the #’s and realize that unless the underlying consistently increases to infinity, both ETF’s are going to 0. I couldn’t bring myself to point it out to the guy, I know, I’m a pussy, what can I say?
Epic.Fail.
Agreed with Ex-wirehouse – many, if not most brokers I speak with daily are too worried about the daily grind to frankly have the time or inclination (to say nothing of knowledge, expertise, etc) needed to take care of their clients. I mean hell, when you have hundreds, if not thousands of relationships with say, hundred or so g’s, its just not logistically possible to provide the highest level of service to many of them, c’est la vie and such.
I spoke to a broker a few weeks ago who had both FAZ and FAS (same quantity) in both his qualified and non-qualified accounts. At best this would be a freaking retarded trade, and that’s before you run the #’s and realize that unless the underlying consistently increases to infinity, both ETF’s are going to 0. I couldn’t bring myself to point it out to the guy, I know, I’m a pussy, what can I say?
Epic.Fail.
Agreed with Ex-wirehouse – many, if not most brokers I speak with daily are too worried about the daily grind to frankly have the time or inclination (to say nothing of knowledge, expertise, etc) needed to take care of their clients. I mean hell, when you have hundreds, if not thousands of relationships with say, hundred or so g’s, its just not logistically possible to provide the highest level of service to many of them, c’est la vie and such.
I spoke to a broker a few weeks ago who had both FAZ and FAS (same quantity) in both his qualified and non-qualified accounts. At best this would be a freaking retarded trade, and that’s before you run the #’s and realize that unless the underlying consistently increases to infinity, both ETF’s are going to 0. I couldn’t bring myself to point it out to the guy, I know, I’m a pussy, what can I say?
Epic.Fail.