The continuing growth of the RIA channel, by the numbers

Market appreciation alone doesn't explain the continuing growth of the RIA channel. Overall, there was a 21% increase in the total assets under management of all included firms in the InvestmentNews RIA Data Center, from $1.1 trillion at the same time in 2014 to $1.3 trillion this year. Ten states in particular saw asset growth of over 40% — Massachusetts, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Utah, Nevada and South Dakota — while no others saw growth of over 30%. Below, we've prepared a map to demonstrate exactly where the wealth is spread out across the country, as well as the top fee-only RIAs in each state.

We just completed our first of two yearly updates to our RIA Data Center, which, using SEC data, tracks all fee-only investment advisers in the RIA space. This is the more important update of the two we conduct, as the SEC requires all firms to file an annual update of their Form ADV Part 2 within 120 days of their fiscal yearend – typically culminating in a rash of updates in the spring. Our fall update detects significantly less change in the makeup of the database.

The biggest firms that appear in our database account for a combined $300 billion in assets under management. That's 23% of the total AUM among all 1,600+ fee-only RIAs in our database – making them true RIA giants. The list: