Trust your gut Frank. It takes a lot of guts to move from the perceived prestige of a large firm to working for yourself. If he has the guts to do that, he has what it takes to take good care of you. This would be great time to give him a call and tell him how much you appreciate him.

Your relationship is first and foremost with your Financial Advisor...who he/she works for has very little to do with the quality of service you recieve. 

A truly good financial advisor, whom you can trust, is extremely hard to find.  You are very lucky...it would be foolish, in my opinion, to sever your relationship simply because he changes firms.

Of course, the fact that you are asking these kinds of questions in a public forum leads me to believe perhaps you don't trust his judgement as much as you claim too.  If that is the case, you should begin interviewing new advisors regardless of where your present broker works.

Maybe you should tell us why he should allow you to follow him over to GA.  Are you a good client?  Can you be trusted?  Do you follow advice?   Do you nickel and dime him?  Are you high maintence?

Do you go behind his back onto broker sites to ask silly questions because you dont have the experience in life to make your own decisions?  If he has never steered you in the wrong freaking direction before what the hell are you waiting for you dolt.  Show some loyality.   

We should all hope that we don't have clients like you Frank on our door step.  Thanks but no thanks, I prefer clients who are honest, loyal, up front & straght forward & guess what they want the very same thing.

Oh one last thing...

Frank, you're a real BLOCKHEAD!

I can't answer for Gunn Allen, but I can offer some insight to Smith Barney.

The firm has made missteps for the last two decades at least.(All firms do, but Shearson etc seemed to have the ability to make them all and keep standing, a feat in it's own right). The situation has been gettting worse over the last couple of years.

All other brokerage firms know this to be true and they are constantly poaching brokers out of SB offices with enticements of large signing bonus checks (lately in the range of 100to 200% of the broker's trailing 12 months of production) from a quarter of a million dollars up!

That's serious money. But your advisor opted NOT to take that check. He opted to go "Independent" which means that he is now more in charge of his own business decisions. He is no longer paying for plush offices downtown at 288 Greenwich and the ridiculous salaries that layers and layers of "managers" get for making his life miserable because he's not doing business they way that is most profitable to the firm.

In the Indy paradigm, he is working for a bigger slice of the commission pie, with which he pays all of his expenses. In the long run its a wise choice (for the right guy), but in the short term, who wouldn't rather put a half mil into their retirement nest egg?

As I said, I don't know GA, I hear disparaging remarks about it but, so what? The parts that are disparaging have to do with the broker side of the equation, not the client side. If he finds out he hates GA he can switch brokerdealers (the firm thathe contracts to hold accounts for him, GA is the one he's using now, I use a different one and several others here use still different ones).

the previous post say it all. it's all about the relationship. don't know anything about gunallen, but if he's leaving sb he's not about to go to a chop-shop.

Frank,

Ask the guy why he chose GA, what you've heard and why the move benefits you as a client...simple straightforward stuff.

Based on a 15 yr. plus relationship that has served you well...you are priviliged in this case to be invited.

I would personally fire your bony ass for the disloyal, self-serving behavior you're exhibiting...I truly hope the Broker is inquisitive enough to uncover your Benedict tendencies and replace you with an appreciative person who's man enough to ask questions directly: Shame on you Turd...save us all the trouble and go to Scottrade where you belong.

I think that's the first time I've seen the word Turd on this website.

Thanks for the laugh.  Don't you just hate clients like this.  Doesn't matter if the have millions.  They just suck.

A guy who leaves Smith Barney for a place like Gunn Allen is, first and foremost, a fool.

A monkey with a pencil could have made money since 1982 so it's nonsensical to think that any given individual makes an iota of difference.

What has to be feared of anybody at a place like Gunn Allen is accepting their advice to place any sum of money into an idea that is unfamiliar.

They, GA, are notorious for a reason and should be avoided like the plague.  Any registered person who is dumb enough to leave a premier firm for a member of the questionable honesty firms has voided his privilege to have his client's trust.

That must have been a nice check…

Frank, guess what, your accounts are going to be transferred to someone else at Smith Barney while you are deciding what to do.  My guess is that you will be missing your broker who you established a 15 year relationship very quickly.  Move with him.

I appreciate all the answers provided, and yes, even the foolish ones by members like Malcolm, Alpha Male, and Charlie Brown.  The truth is that I do trust my broker and am going to make the switch over with him.  I was just curious, from an unbiased opinion, as to what professionals in this industry thought about this switch (why a broker would switch and why GA).  I'm sure my broker isn't going to come out and say that there might be issues with GA or that he is making the switch because of the higher payout for making the switch to an indi.  I am just simply searching for information.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I don't really know why I am wasting my time by asking our "all-trusting" brokers (Malcolm, Charlie, and Alpha) this question, but is it wrong to not trust someone 100%?  Have great decision makers in the past rose to high levels because they trusted and followed everything and every move of there predecessors?  To say that I should agree and back 100% of all my broker's decisions would be, imho, absurd.  Why do we have second opinions from doctors?  Long lines at airports?  Why do some of us sometimes check up on their spouses if they are out late with friends?

The truth is, we live in a society where the "all-trusting" people get eaten up in life.  Doing a little research on where I’m about to put my family's nest egg should certainly not be misconstrued as "going behind my brokers back".

Again, I am just searching for feedback regarding the two questions is posed in my original post.  It's not because I don't trust my broker, it's not that I am going behind his back, it is simply because I am doing a little due diligence

Frank, with all due respect, this forum is hardly the place to conduct your due diligence. 

Please frank...grow a set and call the freakin' guy!! If you don't like his answers and your gut tells you no...that's the proper course.

No stop with the "go tell it on a moutain" absurd and monumentally juvenille analogies your due diligence process entails and pick up the damn phone.

You are a TURD until you conduct yourself in a fashion becoming an adult.

By the way. I do in fact have your "nest egg hangin" you disloyal approval from strangers seeking Waterhouse wannabe.

Go call or go away.

[quote=FrankB]

I appreciate all the answers provided, and yes, even the foolish ones by members like Malcolm, Alpha Male, and Charlie Brown.  The truth is that I do trust my broker and am going to make the switch over with him.  I was just curious, from an unbiased opinion, as to what professionals in this industry thought about this switch (why a broker would switch and why GA).  I'm sure my broker isn't going to come out and say that there might be issues with GA or that he is making the switch because of the higher payout for making the switch to an indi.  I am just simply searching for information.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I don't really know why I am wasting my time by asking our "all-trusting" brokers (Malcolm, Charlie, and Alpha) this question, but is it wrong to not trust someone 100%?  Have great decision makers in the past rose to high levels because they trusted and followed everything and every move of there predecessors?  To say that I should agree and back 100% of all my broker's decisions would be, imho, absurd.  Why do we have second opinions from doctors?  Long lines at airports?  Why do some of us sometimes check up on their spouses if they are out late with friends?

The truth is, we live in a society where the "all-trusting" people get eaten up in life.  Doing a little research on where I’m about to put my family's nest egg should certainly not be misconstrued as "going behind my brokers back".

Again, I am just searching for feedback regarding the two questions is posed in my original post.  It's not because I don't trust my broker, it's not that I am going behind his back, it is simply because I am doing a little due diligence

[/quote]

YOu're money is going into the same market that it's been in for years. Don't be a baby. After 15 years, if I found out that one of my clients was sniffing around behind my back, I would fire him. My clients have done well only because they have done what I told them to do when I told them to do it.

[quote=Bobby Hull]

My clients have done well only because they have done what I told them to do when I told them to do it.

[/quote]

Nonsense--nobody has lost money since 1982.

Your clients could have bought almost any mutual fund and held on to it for twenty years and done as well.

Put, it’s good to see you back in form…I was starting to worry about you…

[quote=Malcolm]

Maybe you should tell us why he should allow you to follow him over to GA.  Are you a good client?  Can you be trusted?  Do you follow advice?   Do you nickel and dime him?  Are you high maintence?

Do you go behind his back onto broker sites to ask silly questions because you dont have the experience in life to make your own decisions?  If he has never steered you in the wrong freaking direction before what the hell are you waiting for you dolt.  Show some loyality.