I did not read this thread past the first post, so if it has already been brought up forgive me, but...

MS raised payouts a year ago and they are still unchanged. EJ is nothing like MS/MER until they bring new issues to market, advise corporations on mergers and aquisitions, build structured investments, offer alternative investments such as futures, hedge funds, exchange funds, and so on.   I am absolutely not trying to put EJ down, I just get tired of hearing retail firms compared to investment banks.  I am not offering an opinion on who's better.

  wlooney

You are absolutely correct. EJ is not an investment bank and probably never will be...which I say because the firm is changing rapidly, and, who knows, if the GPs see a profitable niche somewhere they will look closely, see who else is doing it and try and iimprove on it...   That is my point, really...EJ has become just like the major firms in areas like production requirements, reducing payouts (how do you discriminate against FAs in 5 states and get away with it??), treating FAs like production units. We have over 10,000 offices now, so this in inevitable. But sad, in my view. If I had wanted to go to work at MER/MS, I wouldve started there. Point taken. Clarification made. Thanks!  

[quote=Effay] wlooney

You are absolutely correct. EJ is not an investment bank and probably never will be…which I say because the firm is changing rapidly, and, who knows, if the GPs see a profitable niche somewhere they will look closely, see who else is doing it and try and iimprove on it…



That is my point, really…EJ has become just like the major firms in areas like production requirements, reducing payouts (how do you discriminate against FAs in 5 states and get away with it??), treating FAs like production units.

We have over 10,000 offices now, so this in inevitable. But sad, in my view. If I had wanted to go to work at MER/MS, I wouldve started there. Point taken. Clarification made.

Thanks!

[/quote]



Effay, I think you’re confused. I don’t think Jones is much different now (in relation to other firms) than it has been in the past. You are just pissed because of the 5 state thing. I have not heard any problems internally from people in those affected states. I realize they cut payout and increased reimbursements (their alternative was they had to increase reimbursements, but not change payout, so to keep things equitable among all FA’s, they had to lower the payout). Honestly, I think you shoudl talk to someone in STL about it, if it really seems to be screwing you. Maybe you are not managing your expenses the right way. They never would have done this had it not been for the stupid overtime lawsuit. But from everything I have heard (granted, mostly from STL), it seems to be compensation-neutral.



Spiff could probably add something to this conversation.

[quote=B24] [quote=Effay]   wlooney

You are absolutely correct. EJ is not an investment bank and probably never will be...which I say because the firm is changing rapidly, and, who knows, if the GPs see a profitable niche somewhere they will look closely, see who else is doing it and try and iimprove on it...
 
That is my point, really...EJ has become just like the major firms in areas like production requirements, reducing payouts (how do you discriminate against FAs in 5 states and get away with it??), treating FAs like production units.
We have over 10,000 offices now, so this in inevitable. But sad, in my view. If I had wanted to go to work at MER/MS, I wouldve started there. Point taken. Clarification made.
Thanks!
 [/quote]

Effay, I think you're confused. I don't think Jones is much different now (in relation to other firms) than it has been in the past. You are just pissed because of the 5 state thing. I have not heard any problems internally from people in those affected states. I realize they cut payout and increased reimbursements (their alternative was they had to increase reimbursements, but not change payout, so to keep things equitable among all FA's, they had to lower the payout). Honestly, I think you shoudl talk to someone in STL about it, if it really seems to be screwing you. Maybe you are not managing your expenses the right way. They never would have done this had it not been for the stupid overtime lawsuit. But from everything I have heard (granted, mostly from STL), it seems to be compensation-neutral.

Spiff could probably add something to this conversation.[/quote]   The only compensation changes I've seen in 10+ years of working with or as an FA have been positive for the majority of FAs.  They haven't changed the gross payout on your average everyday investments in years.  They have INCREASED payout on things like B & C shares, but that was quite a while ago.  There is still an incentive to sell A shares with a higher payout (40%) than B or C (35%).  But that's the only one I can remember.      There are some people that were negatively affected by the change in the bonus structure.  Weddle has said in his weekly suggbox responses that they knew it was going to negatively affect a small percentage of the FA population.  But, like B24 said, if it wasn't for the overtime lawsuit they wouldn't have changed anything.    I honestly don't know how often grids change at some place like ML or MS.  I know that I've read articles in RR and some other publications that have mentioned that grids are changing.  So I know it's more frequent than Jones does it.  You may feel like a lot of compensation changes are happening if you're relatively new to Jones, but I assure you the last couple of years have been the exception, not the rule.