Wirehouses losing more advisors so far in 2026: Report

Wirehouse attrition, the net loss of financial advisors at the leading wealth management firms in the industry, is climbing in 2026, with the Big Four Wall Steet firms losing a net total of 517 advisors over the first six months of the year, according to a new report by Diamond Consultants, a recruiting and consulting firm.

The four firms, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and UBS, lost 1,449 experienced advisors and recruited 932 in the first six months of the year, producing net attrition of 517. Annualized, that would represent a net loss of 1,034 advisors.

That would be more than three times the total of 2025, when the wirehouses saw a net loss of 302 financial advisors, according to the report, which is titled “Financial advisor transition report: wirehouse edition.”

“The proliferation of choice is a big part of this,” said Louis Diamond, CEO of Diamond Consultants, in an interview Thursday. “Two hundred different firms recruited or hired a team from one of the four wirehouses so far this year. That’s incredible.”

“Next, advisors have more power and leverage than ever, and they’re seeing and thinking about the valuations of firms out there,” Diamond said. “And it’s also the market cycle. Every few years, firms have their moment, and not in a good way. That causes some advisors to look for another firm.”

Not so fast say industry executives at the wirehouses speaking privately to InvestmentNews. While some admit that the competition for their advisors is as fierce as ever, they privately are skeptical whether the numbers in such reports are accurate.

Indeed, the report states that wirehouse recruiting was very solid on the inbound side of the ledger but not enough so far this year to turn the tide in their favor.

“Overall, the wirehouse space has been losing talent to other pockets of the industry,” according to the report. “Regional, boutique, and independent firms have all gained market share.”

“The average productivity, size, sophistication, and capacity of a wirehouse advisor is larger than ever,” according to the report. “The four firms in this report still control a massive swath of total industry assets. And perhaps most importantly, their scale and size should be a major “competitive moat” as the AI arms race continues to heat up.”

There is no doubt that a growing number of financial advisors are fleeing the employee world of the Big Four wirehouses, for other firms, quite often independent broker-dealers and registered investment advisors where they may grow their own wealth, not just their clients.

Competitors target wirehouse advisors to recruit and hire because they generate on average the largest amount of revenue per advisor in the industry and often work with clients that are wealthier than those at independent broker-dealers or RIAs.

At independent firms like LPL Financial or Raymond James or standalone RIAs, financial advisors get a far greater percentage of revenue – often twice as much – than working for one of the wirehouses. Add in greater autonomy over the products they sell, it’s appealing to many.

Those advisors also own or control the equity in their businesses, which means they can ultimately sell their practice when they want to retire for a higher dollar amount than retiring as an employee at a wirehouse.

That has been the pitch for independent broker-dealers and RIAs for years. And according to the Diamond Consultants’ report, that message appears to have gained advisors’ attention.

Diamond Consultants in the report uses transitions of advisors with a length of service greater than three years and advisors who retire from a firm are excluded, as the report only includes those who register with a new firm.

The data in this report is culled from a variety of resources, including data firms and industry publications, including InvestmentNews.