The market for municipal bonds is notorious for being opaque and filled with difficult to price securities.
Cash sweep programs have turned into a bit of a viper’s nest for the financial advice industry, particularly large broker-dealers.
Toward the end of last year, UBS said it was redrawing its pay plan for advisors.
"LPL's salespeople are all over the place," said one senior industry executive.
The firm’s CFO, head of recruiting, and head of advisor relations have followed its CEO out the door.
This dispute centered on a group of Stifel Financial advisors who left the firm two years ago to an RIA.
"I've seen lots of denial in this business but this GPB thing take the cake," says one industry executive.
The current legal battle with a broker-dealer, Alpine Securities, is the latest challenge for the industry regulator.
“The arbitration panel really threw the book at Stifel,” according to one plaintiff’s attorney.
The wealth management business has fallen in line with President Trump's anti-DEI stance, and it’s appalling.