Advisers ride out East Coast quake

For one day at least, the shock waves buffeting the advisory industry weren't emanating from Wall Street. Shortly after 1:51 p.m. E.T today, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake centered in Mineral, Va., shook much of the Eastern seaboard and New England. According to early reports, ripples from the quake could be felt as far north as Toronto. Residents in Philadelphia, New York City and Boston also reported feeling tremors. Some buildings were evacuated in Manhattan, but no major damage – or serious injuries – were reported in the Northeast, where the temblor was little more than a minor annoyance and curiosity. Advisers and industry participants working in Virginia and Washington, D.C. (about 80 miles northeast of the epicenter) had a slightly different experience. “I was sitting in my office, and it sounded as if a jet was getting ready to land on our office,” Tony Leal, president of PIE Technologies Inc., said in a phone call from his two-story Powhatan, Va., office, which is about 30 miles from the quake's epicenter. “It sounded just like a train off in the distance at first and got louder. The office began to shake, light fixtures started swinging. I could feel the building swaying under my feet. It lasted about 15 to 20 seconds.” Mr. Leal, whose company makes the very popular MoneyGuidePro financial planning software used by many advisers, said a colleague noticed the Hot Wheels toy cars fall off his computer monitor. A similar same scene unfolded at Caprin Asset Management LLC in located in Richmond, Va. “It shook for a good 10 to 15 seconds, said Adam Plotkin, managing director at Caprin Asset Management LLC. “Monitors and pictures were moving.” His office, which is situated on the second floor of a four-story building, has 13 staffers. The building was evacuated temporarily. Other advisers in the area reported that their cell phone service was spotty, but electricity did not go out. In fact, some continued to conduct business during the quake. Jennifer Berdell, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch adviser in Richmond, felt the tremor for about 10 second and jumped into a doorway, but decided not to evacuate so that she could keep a client appointment. The client momentarily returned home en route to the meeting but was able to keep the appointment. “It was kind of a non-event,” said David O'Brien, an adviser with O'Brien Financial Planning in Midlothian, Va. “I was on the way to the office and running an errand; I didn't really feel the earthquake.” The total damage in his office amounted to a few objects falling off a shelf.” By the end of the afternoon, the focus for most advisers returned to the gyrations coming from Wall Street. This day, the news was a bit more pleasant — the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day up 322 points. Davis Janowski and Andrew Osterland contributed to this story