The Jones Financial Companies announced third quarter earnings this week that included a consecutive quarter of advisor growth and brought Edward Jones to 19,009 total financial advisors—an increase of 259 over the same period last year, helped by a 30% decrease in the number of advisors who left the organization.
Edward Jones reported ending the third quarter with $1.8 trillion in client assets, or a 17% increase over the same time last year, and net revenue growth of 15% to $3.5 billion, “primarily due to increases in fee revenue and net interest and dividends revenue.”
At the same time, operating expenses increased 13% to nearly $3.1 billion, primarily due to increases in compensation and benefits expense, other operating expenses and communications and data processing expenses.
Net new assets decreased 30% in the third quarter of 2023, the firm reported, citing slower asset growth, higher asset outflows and slower household growth—the firm reported a 35% decrease in net new households, though the new clients came with a higher average level of assets.
"We are proud of the competitive advantage that comes from our focus on our clients," Don Aven, an Edward Jones principal on a team involved in sourcing and developing new talent, said in a statement. "This includes offering our financial advisors new ways to deeply serve their clients and structure their practices—co-location, teaming and expanded support roles—with flexibility, autonomy and choice for branch teams while keeping clients at the center of our business.”
Edward Jones is also rolling out tools to enable more comprehensive discovery and provide more comprehensive advice and planning, according to a statement, including a phased rollout of MoneyGuide Elite and the introduction of Portfolio Optimization that supports tax-optimized, bespoke investment strategies. The company is also adding tools like Salesforce to help branch teams with structuring and operation.
This summer, Edward Jones announced it was moving to a more teams-based model, allowing advisors to co-locate and share clients. The firm predicted more than 1,000 advisors would take advantage of the new model by the end of the year.