[quote=gonzojoel]Does anyone have any experience with Raymond James? I have an interview at a branch next week. I'm curious about what type of training program and training salary they offer.

Thanks,
[/quote]

Cue the girl.

What the hell does “cue the girl” mean? 

This is your opportunity to shine girl, tell it to the world!

maybe maybe?

I’ve always heard pretty good things about RayJay (FS, not associates).  I think what they’re trying to do with VA’s now is a big mistake, though.

Freedom,



Something to think about…



Do you think maybe Ray Jay is trying to bring down the cost of annuitties because they actually like them, and maybe want the NASD to back off on brokers selling them inside of IRA’s because RayJay realizes that the opportunity in this business is in distribution planning not accumulation?



It is a simple formula, more volume, more money. I also think the insurance companies have more money to pony up (even if they cut M & E) and their reduced version will still pay more than A shares and I think you’ll always see a C share option.



These are just my opinions, take em or leave them, but I think that is why they are pursuing the push.

Bankrep1,

Do you think the fact that RayJay fought and lost some big battles over the last year or so with the regulators plays into this at all?  It seems to me that this and some other recent initiatives have been in response to this, not b/c all of a sudden they think there is a better product for the client.

Broker dealers are responsible for regulating the disclosures and the process the advisor goes through when making a sale - they are not responsible for setting the price.

If their true objective was just lowering the price for the client, then why is the decrease in commissions to the rep not being reduced in a commensurate manner.  They may lower what their advisors are taking home, but I'd be surprised if the company realizes any lower revenue from those products.

Just my opinions as well

I am not following you on the commission front.



I think Rayjay sees the marketplace changing from accumulation to distribution. They know annuitties with GWB riders offer huge potential and will fit this trend, however, they know the NASD doesn’t like annuities because your paying for tax deferral, so they say (this is an outdated view).



What makes me think this, here are a couple of highlights from articles I read:



“Annuities are truly valuable, but they’ve been operating under a black cloud,” says Dick Averitt, chairman and chief executive officer of Raymond James Financial Services. “We have many advisers that wouldn’t touch an annuity product with a stick because of that.” (Bad press, good press more annuity sales)



With its new offerings, Raymond James hopes to clarify annuity fees that have historically been “very well obfuscated,” Averitt says. The new product is one way the industry can anticipate regulatory concerns about variable annuities, although no specific ruling prompted the action, he says. “Rather than wait for regulators to concoct a set of rules to govern it, we decided since we’re the ones who best understand the products, we should do something about them.”

Bank, I think what Mo is trying to say is that the decrease in fees to the client can be measured in tens of bps, where the decrease in commission to the advisor can be measured in hundreds of bps.  The point is that RayJay is primarily doing this just for show.

"Look Mr./Mrs. NASD!  We're going to pay our advisors much less on this VA!  See how much we care about the client?"  It's a PR move and not the altruistic move they present it as.

Either way it's a risky endeavor and I hope it pays off for them, but really don't believe it will.  Of COURSE they have many advisors who won't touch an annuity.  They can say that about any financial vehicle they offer.

"We have many advisors that wouldn't touch a fee-based account"

"We have many advisors that wouldn't touch a bond-ladder"

"We have many advisors that wouldn't touch "

Take a closer look at the details and it becomes clearer and clearer.  Are there VA's that are more competitive than others?  Sure.  The problem was never with the products, but with some shady salespeople.  It's the b/d's job to discover those people and weed them out.  It seems to me that RJFS is punishing thousands of Advisors because their compliance department isn't doing their due diligence on the sales, which require inordinate amounts of disclosure already.

Anyway, I'm generally going to be against almost anything that takes away from my ability to run my own office, and for practices that leave me alone to run my business the way I see fit, in accordance with securities law.

Just my opinion...

[quote=FreedomLvr]

* Either way it's a risky endeavor and I hope it pays off for them, but really don't believe it will.

* The problem was never with the products, but with some shady salespeople. 

[/quote]

You have some idea but you're missing some very large parts of the puzzle. It's always interesting when "salespeople" self-hatred and disrespect shows through as in your post. On average the experienced advisor is more trust worthy than the average firm. There are always some bad individuals but the idea that RJ and the NASD should be in the price regulation game on annuity products is your first confusion. This should be left to an open market of product producers not steering the RR or dealer management systems on price controls of products. There is plenty of conflicts of interest to steer people out of the insurance matrix and back to the dealer system on assets.  

It's confusing to many outsiders looking in and clients have little idea at all. In the case of RJFS it's an incredible power grab at the "independent" channel who are seeing their choices become proprietary as opposed to open on products. Like watching "Jaws" for the 20th time we know where firm control on products ends no matter how they re-rationalize or as in this case disguise the move with "client first" rhetoric. A major reason why many people picked RJFS to begin with was to avoid this level of wirehouse culture. Since RJ focuses on recruiting from even larger prison cultures (wirehouses) many people look and say "it isn't as bad as what I left" without addressing the contradictions of picking up most expenses, paying through the nose for clearing and having a dealer (like most) who will dump any issue on any advisor they can in an ever more aggressive fashion. You could address the uniform pricing movement which in the end will make this a very unpleasant business for anyone who services smaller clients at all. The attack on the annuity is really a control move and the brutal business of people leaving RJFS has begun. If that market force doesn't react strongly the entire industry is worse off not better. If other "independents" follow similar trends as being set here all your pay has gone down and your risks have been increased. People here get real reactive when you appear to be exposing some of the phony talking points about "independence" but that's where some of this goes. So this is a complicated topic in some ways and makes the average independent guy uncomfortable for pointing out the not so obvious on top of it.

You can look up my other posts with more technical explanation if you wish. The one glaring thought when I read your post was how off the mark about the root issue in our industry is. It's shady firms with superior political influence over a political hack self-regulatory agency that are the core of both clients and producer issues and making the whole system worse while claiming to make it better and it isn't that new. If you take a big bite out of the "cheaper is of course better" apple as runs through this topic the unintended consequences will be far worse for you and the clients at large. Millions of marginal clients will get no personal financial services at all and will driven into the call center world of the Vanguard's and other discounters or worse the Suze Orman infomercial world for serious financial decisions. It's all related if you let government and self-regulatory interests such as brokers dealers set prices and make these decisions apart from free markets and more free independent advisers. It's all going wrong here.

I went to lunch recently with an annuity wholesaler that covers RJ’s home office territory in central florida.  He told me that some large producers are indeed bailing over this annuity controversy.  Not sure what the numbers are.

[quote=Seeker15][quote=FreedomLvr]

* Either way it's a risky endeavor and I hope it pays off for them, but really don't believe it will.

* The problem was never with the products, but with some shady salespeople. 

[/quote]

You have some idea but you're missing some very large parts of the puzzle. It's always interesting when "salespeople" self-hatred and disrespect shows through as in your post. On average the experienced advisor is more trust worthy than the average firm. There are always some bad individuals but the idea that RJ and the NASD should be in the price regulation game on annuity products is your first confusion. This should be left to an open market of product producers not steering the RR or dealer management systems on price controls of products. There is plenty of conflicts of interest to steer people out of the insurance matrix and back to the dealer system on assets.  

I agree completely, seeker.  I didn't feel the need to repeat what moleary stated a couple of posts before.  I wanted to make a few additional points.

It's confusing to many outsiders looking in and clients have little idea at all. In the case of RJFS it's an incredible power grab at the "independent" channel who are seeing their choices become proprietary as opposed to open on products. Like watching "Jaws" for the 20th time we know where firm control on products ends no matter how they re-rationalize or as in this case disguise the move with "client first" rhetoric. A major reason why many people picked RJFS to begin with was to avoid this level of wirehouse culture. Since RJ focuses on recruiting from even larger prison cultures (wirehouses) many people look and say "it isn't as bad as what I left" without addressing the contradictions of picking up most expenses, paying through the nose for clearing and having a dealer (like most) who will dump any issue on any advisor they can in an ever more aggressive fashion. You could address the uniform pricing movement which in the end will make this a very unpleasant business for anyone who services smaller clients at all. The attack on the annuity is really a control move and the brutal business of people leaving RJFS has begun. If that market force doesn't react strongly the entire industry is worse off not better. If other "independents" follow similar trends as being set here all your pay has gone down and your risks have been increased. People here get real reactive when you appear to be exposing some of the phony talking points about "independence" but that's where some of this goes. So this is a complicated topic in some ways and makes the average independent guy uncomfortable for pointing out the not so obvious on top of it.

And this is pretty much what I said when I mentioned that I wanted to be allowed to run my own biz.

You can look up my other posts with more technical explanation if you wish. The one glaring thought when I read your post was how off the mark about the root issue in our industry is. It's shady firms with superior political influence over a political hack self-regulatory agency that are the core of both clients and producer issues and making the whole system worse while claiming to make it better and it isn't that new. If you take a big bite out of the "cheaper is of course better" apple as runs through this topic the unintended consequences will be far worse for you and the clients at large. Millions of marginal clients will get no personal financial services at all and will driven into the call center world of the Vanguard's and other discounters or worse the Suze Orman infomercial world for serious financial decisions. It's all related if you let government and self-regulatory interests such as brokers dealers set prices and make these decisions apart from free markets and more free independent advisers. It's all going wrong here.

Also part of a larger point which moleary already made and I didn't feel the need to repeat.

Seeker said:

Millions of marginal clients will get no personal financial services at all and will driven into the call center world of the Vanguard’s and other discounters or worse the Suze Orman infomercial world for serious financial decisions.



Question

So are you saying all small clients belong in annutties because that is the only way they can be serviced, in high commission products?

[quote=bankrep1]Seeker said:
Millions of marginal clients will get no personal financial services at all and will driven into the call center world of the Vanguard's and other discounters or worse the Suze Orman infomercial world for serious financial decisions.

Question
So are you saying all small clients belong in annutties because that is the only way they can be serviced, in high commission products?[/quote]

It's off point, the issue is about the dealers role in a pricing control situation with the field. Regardless, lower commissions have led to lower service to smaller clients but your comment is off when you decide what "high" is. Markets should decide price not regulators. RJ has overstepped since it made a commitment to let producers have a rational and open product selection that wasn't firm driven, those days are over on product. Go read the ads and tell me how you square it? "Your business you own?"