Top 5/Bottom 5 Indy BD Choices
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[quote=Indyone]
I do L-share annuities. I like 'em because they have a short (4-year) surrender, which makes them client-friendly. They also pay an up-front of 3-4% and have a 1% trail so I am paid to do all the paperwork and planning now and get paid a fee to service and reallocate them each year. RayJay thinks the L-share pays me too much and outlawed them. I happen to disagree. [/quote] One thing i will say about RJ is that they are very conservative, sometimes to a fault. I agree with your take on L-Shares - i think they work for the client and the FA, if they are doing a VA. I knew about it going in, but it didnt bother me because annuities are a very small piece of my biz. I am not saying they are bad, lets not even go there (again and again) I am just saying i dont do them, not my style, except in very specific circumstances. But yes, RJ is very conservative, sometimes thats good, and sometimes its a pain. They also have a rule that in 529 plans if the beneficiary is 12 yrs old or younger, you can't do C shares. They say they got a lot of heat from FINRA which resulted in that rule. RJ compliance is not much diff from the wire i came from. I dont know or have a way of knowing, how much of that is RJ and how much is FINRA, maybe compliance is compliance whereever you go, i would be curious to hear other indies thoughts and experiences on this. But the one difference is that at RJ, when the compliance people are making life difficult, they are very nice about it. Very diff than what i was used to. It sounds stupid, but it makes a difference.Thanks all for the nice comments on Trade-PMR! As far as the B/D comment is concerned, I think it is all relative to what each Advisor needs (and wants). I used to work for that firm in the middle-of-the-cornfield and before that worked for those firms in ‘the big city.’ If I were looking for a B/D relationship, and this is just my own personal opinion, I’d look for a B/D that has the capabilities of a wirefirm but is independent and is not owned by a large conglomerate. These types of firms tend to be self-clearing but not always.
I’m going to go ahead and give a shameless plug for my firm, Capital Guardian, LLC. We are a small, boutique, privately owned BD/RIA located just outside Charlotte, NC. Founders started the firm in 2005 after 20 years with Raymond James. We clear and custody with Pershing. We do not haircut commissions on VAs or any other products. We are a solutions based, knowledge cooperative. Our management team is young, energetic and knows the business. The majority of management was either an FA at one point or still is to some degree. Our platform is better than a wirehouse b/c of our true open architecture. Great fee-based solutions, robust lineup of alternative investments (and I don’t mean private REITs & Oil/Gas LPs), direct access to fixed income traders for corporate and muni bonds (we will kill wirehouse or other retail inventory pricing) and tremendous capabilities for the international client. We are everything that that the wirehouses, RJ & LPL are not. We aren’t for everyone and we are selective. Currently have ~ 60 FAs, mostly on east coast. We run two channels - regular Indy channel and a branch office channel (currently in Miami, West Palm Beach, and Charlotte - opening soon in Washington DC and probably Baltimore). We offer equity in the branch offices to founding members and select producers. Attracting a lot of wirehouse advisors and sophisticated Indy reps who are tired of what RJ, LPL and other large BDs have become.
Based on that information, firms who I would avoid: 1. RJ 2. LPL 3. FiNet 4. Insurance Based BDs
Other firms we have respect for: 1. Commonwealth 2. Stifel 3. Geneos
No offense buddy but maybe the founders had a combined 20 years with RJ… but actual years was 7 for your president and founder who also has a complaint and settlement on his account for get this…
BREACH OF FIDUCIARY BREACH OF CONTRACT VIOLATION OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SECURITIES ACT ... and my personal favorite.. VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA'S RICO ACT(WTF... RICO.. really?) No one takes you reco's seriously anymore...NEXT TIME BUY AN AD....it's less embarassing...PIKER>>>Squash, I appreciate you doing your research. Yes, one of the founders has a mark on his U4. It was an unfortunate situation, but in no way characterizes the type of firm that we are. I don’t think there is anything wrong with putting a few sentences about our firm on this forum. At the end of the day, each rep needs to do their own research and decide what’s best for them. I guess my message to the creator of this thread is that there are a good BDs out there that a lot of people have probably never heard of. You will get a larger product offering, better service and lower fees. I apologize if I offended anyone with my post.
How the hell are they still in business after that? Why don’t they bar you from the Securities industry?
[quote=Squash1]No offense buddy but maybe the founders had a combined 20 years with RJ… but actual years was 7 for your president and founder who also has a complaint and settlement on his account for get this…
BREACH OF FIDUCIARY BREACH OF CONTRACT VIOLATION OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SECURITIES ACT ... and my personal favorite.. VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA'S RICO ACT(WTF... RICO.. really?) No one takes you reco's seriously anymore...NEXT TIME BUY AN AD....it's less embarassing...PIKER>>>[/quote]You're such a tool bag
Probably 250k producer acting like a big shot
When you make enough to hire an assistant let us know
[quote=DD]
[quote=Squash1]No offense buddy but maybe the founders had a combined 20 years with RJ… but actual years was 7 for your president and founder who also has a complaint and settlement on his account for get this…
BREACH OF FIDUCIARY BREACH OF CONTRACT VIOLATION OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SECURITIES ACT ... and my personal favorite.. VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA'S RICO ACT(WTF... RICO.. really?) No one takes you reco's seriously anymore...NEXT TIME BUY AN AD....it's less embarassing...PIKER>>>[/quote]You're such a tool bag
Probably 250k producer acting like a big shot
When you make enough to hire an assistant let us know
[/quote]
He's a tool bag for pointing out that advisors and presidents of B/D's with those kinds of violations shouldn't be trusted an might not be a good place to work?
Besides 250k is probably more than you've done the last three years combined.
When the wirehouse lets you start sharing an assistant, let us know.
[quote=Magician]
[quote=DD]
[quote=Squash1]No offense buddy but maybe the founders had a combined 20 years with RJ… but actual years was 7 for your president and founder who also has a complaint and settlement on his account for get this…
BREACH OF FIDUCIARY BREACH OF CONTRACT VIOLATION OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SECURITIES ACT ... and my personal favorite.. VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA'S RICO ACT(WTF... RICO.. really?) No one takes you reco's seriously anymore...NEXT TIME BUY AN AD....it's less embarassing...PIKER>>>[/quote]You're such a tool bag
Probably 250k producer acting like a big shot
When you make enough to hire an assistant let us know
[/quote]
He's a tool bag for pointing out that advisors and presidents of B/D's with those kinds of violations shouldn't be trusted an might not be a good place to work?
Besides 250k is probably more than you've done the last three years combined.
When the wirehouse lets you start sharing an assistant, let us know.
[/quote]
He's a tool bag for making a statement
Not asking the question
"MrClutch, care to comment on this. Why should we work with you"
No coming off as discovering something we'd all not find on due dil. DD :)
A small producer know it all
TOOL BAG
Why does he need to ask a question? The statement says it all. If mrclutch wants to defend, he can.
I’d take a small producer any day over a crook.
[quote=DD] [quote=Squash1]No offense buddy but maybe the founders had a combined 20 years with RJ… but actual years was 7 for your president and founder who also has a complaint and settlement on his account for get this…
BREACH OF FIDUCIARY BREACH OF CONTRACT VIOLATION OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SECURITIES ACT ... and my personal favorite.. VIOLATION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA'S RICO ACT(WTF... RICO.. really?) No one takes you reco's seriously anymore...NEXT TIME BUY AN AD....it's less embarassing...PIKER>>>[/quote]You're such a tool bag
Probably 250k producer acting like a big shot
When you make enough to hire an assistant let us know
[/quote] Actually did $300+ last year... I know small time compared to you wirehouse guys.... But oh well...
Sorry for taken so long to respond, but I’ve been in two meetings out of the office this morning. I want to remain as professional as possible, but Squash, you probably should have done your homework a little better before you decided to start bad mouthing people. Copied below is the case summary from the NASD Dispute Resolution. This was nothing more than a client wanting a “take back” on some tech stocks that he bought back during the internet and tech boom. I’m sure there are plenty of advisors who have similar complaints. I can’t explain the RICO thing, maybe the client’s attorney was really trying to make a name for himself. I’m not going to call Squash a tool, but I am a little disappointed that he would post such harsh comments without knowing the details, especially when the details were only a couple clicks away after you were already in his FINRA report.
Our firm is held in very high regards with our clearing firm and there has been plenty of other due diligence done on us by some very important people in this country. If you need more details, feel free to PM me and we can have a phone conversation.Case Summary
Claimant asserted the following causes of action, among others: breach of fiduciary duty, breach
of contract, violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, violation of the North Carolina
Securities Act, violation of North Carolina's RICO Act, and negligence. The causes of actionrelate to various stocks including: Intel, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Dell and JDS Uniphase.
From the way I read it, it might have been FVDA. He wasn’t stridently against anyone, offered a professional insight, suggested his firm was good. Moreover, mrclutch makes cogent contributions on matters that don’t directly reflect on his firm on these forums. Of course, that’s because in addition to being a recruiter he’s actually an active financial advisor.
Insofar as the commentary regarding Capital Guardian's President and founder ... I think it's worthwhile to take a moment, read the complaint, and realize the environment. Then, while you're at it, consider if anyone else - anyone else - at the firm has even a single mark against them. As a firm, they are clean and individually they are clean. Wondering if any other broker dealer could say the same. Funny thing ... I don't recall Squash saying what firm he was with ...No, Squash just likes to run to broker check and run reports on people for hours. Piker.
Post yours big boy.Ok… Squash is kind of creepy, but that guy seemed to be full of sh*t too…I love how we still measure our penis by production and number of assistants…Really?? So all of a sudden producing $250K taking home $225 before taxes and expenses is a bad thing? maybe i should pay somebody another $40K to answer a phone and greet people(retards do that at walmart… )
Isn't the reason most of us when independent so we don't have to deal with stupid notions of how much to produce this year to justify my job... Anybody who does over $250k can do $750k if they are willing to put in the time... But I thought the goal of indy was life/work balance...?????I got no problem with production numbers, and whether or not to have an admin (there was a long, long thread where I took considerable heat about that). For that matter, I’ve published enough of my numbers, my LOS and the firm for whom I work. There’s really little mystery about me.
I have a problem with people hiding behind usernames, taking shots at respectable people and firms with no particularly good reason.[quote=LockEDJ]I got no problem with production numbers, and whether or not to have an admin (there was a long, long thread where I took considerable heat about that). For that matter, I’ve published enough of my numbers, my LOS and the firm for whom I work. There’s really little mystery about me.
I have a problem with people hiding behind usernames, taking shots at respectable people and firms with no particularly good reason. [/quote] What side were you on?(just curious)... I agree hiding behind the name is cowardly, but both of them are doing it... There is obviously a difference of opinion on what is "respectable".....I'm definitely in the life/work balance, chief, just like you.
You're right about production and admins ... we tell our clients it's not what you make but what you keep, right? If I can keep my gross at 16-20K a month in the indy world, I'd make as much as the very best producers in my area at Jones. That's just sick.
***** Good: Cambridge - really excellent technology, tools to develop FAs Cantella - access to more free research than any other firm (RJ, Credite Suisse, JPM for free), good payout, limited additional bills. Capital Guardian - real feeling like you're directly working with great people; incredibly flexible in tangible ways; lower costs & higher payouts; developed channels other firms don't even talk about, seemed strong in alternative investments. KSI - insurance, online website (for me), loved the proximity of their office (hence, annual conference) to my mom's home in Dade County. Bad: LPL and RJ made it clear to me they were more interested in larger producers today. Which is cool, that's where they want to go. (see above).[quote=chief123](retards do that at walmart… )
[/quote]Um it's pronounced re-tard (think Hangover)