So they took a stand on Herula, and I'm glad they did.  But, one still wonders how they didn't catch him sooner.  There was some funky sutff going on there.

Too, one has to ask why they allowed him to affiliate with RJFS in the first place...other than the obvious answer of $$$.  From waht I understand he tried to affiliate with at least one other major indy firm and they took a pass.

Joe, yeah you'd think he could have been caught earlier, but the "funky stuff" probably contributed to the difficulty.  There apparently were off-shore accounts, multiple companies, European companies, a Canadian, a Drefus Fund director, the son of the family formerly owning the Patriots, etc. -- a real complicated soap opera!  He's of course in prison now.

Don't know anything about Herula, but he was only at RJFS about 1 1/2 years before he was fired in early 2001.  Ironically, he wasn't even arrested until 2003, so I guess even the feds had a time with him.  At RJFS he was just a rep in an indy branch, and that usually indicates he didn't have the production to qualify for his own office.

Duke#1 writes;

Even if RJ had never ever tried to dictate pricing on prospectus items before, how does that affect their ability to make another decision going forward?

Who doubts the "ability" of management to betray their contracted associates? When did I say that? It's simply that the effort is morally wrong, contradictory to all existing recruiting claims, poor pandering and opportunism of dreadful NASD priorities, poor long-term direction by emulating large firm culture that most here sought to escape from. Who said they didn't have the ability to try? Only the market (dealers really competing on independent themes) and perhaps a little reason can reverse this folly before the carnage really get going.

Then why even discuss the topic at all duke#1? With that much faith you want give the firm and discretionary regulatory authority you might as well not be bored with the debate of ideas here. With this definition of authority you are willing to concede RJFS is really nothing but wirehouse and all the recruiting covenants accumulated and hyperbole about "independence" are close to worthless with a standard such as this.

This is how you concede points? Talk about a "yeah, but" presentation. To you it's nothing at all that the independent of firm agenda prospectus goes away all together. I'm sorry I'm not going to follow you into serfdom so quietly.

RJ is making massive investments in "compliance" which is really a coded term into transforming RJFS into another mega neurotic wirehouse with various twists and illusions to the contrary. It took all kinds of creative energy to invent the brown wrapper proprietary VA move that we have debated here. Millions of firm dollars are going to be wasted on this VA effort to further justify truly "obsolete" costs which are what the salaried people in Florida dedicated to imagining they can observe a million new activities through technology and report requirements with every cost buried in ticket charges that never seem to go down and capturing every productivity increase technology has provided. The right move for RJ would be to turn buildings 3 through 5 into a hotel and renounce the big wirehouse firm agenda being shilled here by you. In the end it's the survivability of the independent advisor concept that is both at stake and the potential salvation of the situation. The death spiral NASD/RJ game plan of addressing every bad out come with ever more irrelevant rules to be enforced by ever more irrelevant mediators dressed as consumer advocates on firm salary has to be turned back. Some compliance yes, smartly crafted compliance yes but this?

By the way, you claimed you like "c" shares which I happen to know are also in the "task force" agenda. You bet there is clown from any number of sources who want all trailing and 12-b1 income BANNED. Gee, maybe RJ should try to placate them now, in your best interest of course, with a 30% firm reduction and you'll shout thank you master!? I really don't think you're a producer at all. The double speak is too clearly management and salary view to even give you the benefit of the doubt as read some of this stuff.

Hopefully your glee you have expressed for the band of brother of the NASD are going to stick together so no RJFS producer can walk for choice under this concocted regulatory make believe will be refuted. So when we hunt this down later and count the millions of dollars of lost recruiting opportunities, millions in departed brokers you might sing a different tune when the pink slip comes your way. Clearly you want to be a "them" instead of "us" but just remember it's the "us" that are counted on to pay for for the toadstool culture envisioned and supported by you. Beaten up as they are markets still exist. B-SHARE CAPS were stupid priorities industrially but they did go uniform quickly, a further decline of reason but a break for your argument in practice you believe. This is still a leap to custom in-house pricing on street VA issues at "independent" dealers that RJ is rolling the dice on. Time will tell. Insurance companies aren't beaten down open end fund dependents of dealer distribution. If anything a smart insurance company could make quite splash here with some guts and brains. They have money too and can kick NASD butt as well as any bank can. Look for a an independent advisor super power to emerge from this sector. They'll simply rent wall street services as truly independent producers flock to a better independent culture. It's that better culture that prompted the two fastest growth segments in the last five years; EIA and VA product lines. I know already duke#1 you'll start railing at the silly insurance concerns and abuses that are obvious there as well, spare me, but this RJ pig can't fly. It isn't bond spreads, b-share caps, breakpoints. It the big Kahuna; proprietary product models and a wild grab at advisor authority to make business decisions dressed up as "compliance" due diligence.  

Farmboy, as I've said before you've got a lot of passion about this and that's good up to a point.  However, I believe your passion is coloring your reasoning and you're losing your objectivity. 

For example, you said: "RJ is making massive investments in 'compliance' which is really a coded term into transforming RJFS into another mega neurotic wirehouse".  You're "shooting the messenger" (RJ), Farmboy, when the source of that message is the regulators and the Spitzers of the world.  Perhaps you haven't been in the business very long, perhaps you're not an OSJ w/ RJFS putting your license & personal financial resources on the line every day in supervising other FAs, or perhaps you just aren't aware of what's going on in the industry.  But, the fact is that ALL firms are ramping up their compliance resources, not just RJ.  I think it'd be a safe bet that we'd be hard-pressed to find any rep on this forum who can say that compliance hasn't gotten stricter or more onerous over the past few years at their b/d. 

Try to learn what's going on in our industry before piling on your own b/d.  There's probably not an issue of Registered Rep that doesn't have some articles focusing on regulatory actions.  Here's just a couple recent ones that will give you a pretty good "state of industry" overview:  http://registeredrep.com/mag/finance_crusade_against_indies/ index.html

http://registeredrep.com/news/cox-addresses-sia/

Farmboy, you can continue with your diatribes about RJ if it makes you feel better.  But, as I said before, this won't solve anything for you.  All you're doing is venting your frustrations.  You can control your business destiny.  But, to do so you have to ACT.  It's like when one of my son's kept complaining about his boss and how he was  inequitable in how he better treated and paid other employees who weren't doing as good a job as he.  I told him he had 3 choices.  He could keep complaining & remain unhappy & let the situation fester (sp?), or he could have a heart to heart talk with his boss to make him aware of these inequities (real or perceived), or he could quit & look for a better situation.  To his credit he spoke with his boss, and fortunately the boss acknowledged that he had been too busy to do the best he could, ended up implementing a comprehensive & objective job performance evaluation system, and gave my son a raise!

My son acted to resolve his problem.  You can do the same.

It's still kind of hard to believe you have a clue about what you are talking about after reading this;

To his credit he spoke with his boss, and fortunately the boss acknowledged that he had been too busy to do the best he could, ended up implementing a comprehensive & objective job performance evaluation system, and gave my son a raise!

RJFS independent contractors own their businesses. They are self-employed risk takers.

You might think it unrelated but there are plenty of psychologies RJ could be focused on to help protect advisor interests but instead they want (like you in this last foolish post) to condescend to their business associates as if they were kitchen help. 

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=domestic News&storyid=2005-12-01T191236Z_01_BAU169104_RTRUKOC_0_U S-RETAIL-WALMART-POLL.xml&rpc=22

Instead it's the pathology of Elliot Spitzer, John Boggle, Suze who are pushing Rj and dealer professionalism into robot culture that you clearly represent. Will see where RJ ends up when the business people get driven out and the likes of you are what remain.  

From the cox article;

The market excesses, the accounting scandals, questionable behavior across a wide swath of industries all have demanded—and received—a stern regulatory response. No regulator in this environment could risk being seen as less vigilant, less aggressive or less committed to punishing the guilty.

Right! They didn't catch plenty so let's focus on everyone and everything. Just remember to start at the bottom first even though clearly it's going to be worse when more filters through the central offices by worshiping the canard of "more regulations" as a solution to specific acts that are already illegal. Why this sells as "action" is hard to figure. How accounting fraud, insider trading, check kiting, CEO fraud, market timing, sleazy dealer kickbacks from fund vendors and insurance companies ands of all things market fluctuations lead to "time to crack down on individual advisor's" is Orwellian in nature. 

At least I'm fighting insanity Duke#1 while you fiddle in a delusions.

Farmboy, the story about my son was an analogy trying to serve as a message to you -- it had nothing to do with RJ or being independent.  The point you lost in the story was that my son made a decision to act, rather than continue his complaining.  That's my message to you. I'm sorry my analogy was too subtle for you to understand.

When you go off on regulators, Farmboy, you're preaching to the choir here.  As I've said repeatedly to you, I'm as distressed about our regulatory environment as anybody.  And so is every probably every rep and every b/d.

Your post again says RJ should "help protect advisor interests".  Where you & I differ is that you see every step RJ takes on the compliance front as being a way to control us and detract from our independence.  I see those steps as a way to protect me.  That's part of what I'm paying them for.  If RJ didn't do some of things they've done to help protect us, and you ended up getting fined, suspended, etc. for some action you took, you'd now probably be complaining that RJ dropped the ball and didn't do enough to protect you! 

For example, you harp about RJ taking an early lead among b/ds to put in b-share restrictions, and this was another example of them supposedly pandering to the regulators.   I say thank goodness they had enough foresight to put in those restrictions, or else RJ and certain of its FAs (including maybe you) would be looking at fines, etc. like a number of other reps and firms which have been subjected to b-share violations.  RJ was smart enough (or lucky enough) to early on see the lay of the land with regulators re their concern with b-shares.  We dodged a bullet because they acted early.

Mutual fund revenue sharing problems are another major instance where RJ dodged a big bullet because of how they chose to operate.  That's why you don't see them on the long list of so many firms including the LPLs, Jones, etc. of the world who got fined.

These and every other instance I've given you in prior posts are facts, Farmboy, not delusions.  I know you can't or won't see them that way.  So, once again I suggest you ACT and stop complaining, because your complaining on this forum, around the water cooler, to your wife/girlfriend etc. doesn't serve any positive purpose in correcting the Machiavellian agenda that you seem to see RJ following.  If you really feel that RJ is treating you so badly, if you really distrust them so much, then find another b/d that's more to your liking.  It's as simple as that!

In the end duke#1 you're willing to accept the decline of the advisor's choice and the contract rights that were negotiated between dealers and contractors based on gratuitous regulatory culture that pass these burdens, cost and restriction onto the more innocent and less corrupt and will lead to even more consumer abuse.

The NASD is both a trade association (for dealers not advisors) as well as a regulatory authority. You've conceded my claims but reverted to the lowest forms of rhetorical "yeah, but" rationalizations, smears and condescension imaginable.

The new VA design is proprietary in nature. It violates the recruiting covenants and principals of the firm. It should be reversed. The b-share analogy is absurd on the face of it as this did not create a new and more restrictive proprietary product but specific rules for existing products. The policy is also deeply flawed industrially but that is another subject.

Smear away, your argument hold little weight.

btw way duke#1 the annuity business hasn’t been hit yet. In fact LPL has stated they will not follow suit with RJ’s annuity move. Also you can still sell eia’s as well as other fixed products outside lpl

Actually $$$$$, LPL requires you to place all EIA business through them as does RJFS.  The big boys aren’t taking any chances with them, and have approved product lists.

$$$$$ or Freedom, or whoever, does RJ  still allow you to sell traditional fixed annuities outside?

what EIA are allowed at LPL or RJ?

AS far as I know both LPL and RJFS allow you to sell traditional fixed annuities away (as long as you disclose it as an OBA), just not EIA's.

Both have their own approved lists and you'd have to check with the firm.  I know that a lot of firms are going by a "10-10-8 rule": No products with a surrender period longer than 10 years, no CDSC greater than 10%, and no commission higher than 8%.  Oh, and I think the insurance company must be in the "A" rating range.

freedom,

Are you with RJ or lpl and if so how do you like them

I like them just fine, thanks for asking!

I guess that’s a big confidential piece of information your holding back.

…Am I imagining things, or has Raymond James taken over sponsorship of this site?!!

...Am I imagining things, or has Raymond James taken over sponsorship of this site?!!

I didn't see any blue and yellow banner ad with a half bald guy getting a GDC haircut, advertising RJ.

It's like that Twilight Zone epside I saw when I was a little kid, the frightened people who were talking did not know they were being watched by a giant little girl, from the other side of her doll house. Her giant eye pressed up against the window...