Wirehouse-hopping drops as reps flock to indies and regionals

The number of advisers moving from one wirehouse to another reached a nine-month low last month, according to data compiled by the Discovery-RR Database. In July, only 28% of the 990 wirehouse representatives who left their firms relocated to other wirehouses, down from 76% of the 981 representatives in December 2008, Discovery reported. Instead, the number of representatives relocating to independent broker-dealers, regional or institutional firms has been on the rise: 18% of the representatives went to an independent firm in July, up from 5% in December. At the same time, 16% went to a regional firm, up from 6%, while 19% went to an institutional firm, up from 5% in December. Discovery Database, a product of The Financial Information Group Inc. in Shrewsbury, N.J., began compiling this data in November 2008. The database tracks the activity of more than 500,000 registered representatives.