READ NOWH1 2026, State of Advisor Movement

Winthrop & Co.

Methodology and coverage

How Winthrop measures advisor movement

Advisor movement gets counted many ways, and most published numbers arrive without their definitions. This page states ours: what we measure, where the data comes from, how often it refreshes, and what we deliberately leave out.

15,540

producing advisors measured on the move, January through June 2026

164

registered-firm acquisitions counted in the same half

4

live per-firm departure trackers, refreshed daily

2

flagship measurements published per year

Two instruments

A measurement and a tape

The measurement

The State of Financial Advisor Movement

Twice yearly, registered-rep and registered-firm movement is measured across the industry: producing-advisor joins and departures by firm, destination channels, and registered-firm acquisitions. The data is prepared by FINTRX and classified by Winthrop & Co.; FINTRX serves as a data partner to Winthrop & Co. The current edition covers January through June 2026 and measured 15,540 producing advisors on the move.

Read the flagship report

The tape

The advisor-moves trackers

Live per-firm logs of publicly reported departures from Edward Jones, Merrill Lynch, Northwestern Mutual, and UBS: team, destination, reported assets, and date, refreshed daily. Every entry carries the public source it was reported in, so any row can be checked against its original story.

Open the trackers

Definitions

What the words mean before the numbers do

Most disagreement between published movement numbers is definitional. These are the definitions behind every count Winthrop publishes.

Producing advisor
An advisor actively serving clients and producing revenue, as distinct from every person holding a registration. Movement counts built on producing advisors run higher than press-derived tallies and lower than raw registration churn, and they are the population that matters for the economics of the industry.
Move
A producing advisor's registration changing from one firm to another within the measured period. A team changing firms together counts as its member advisors, not as one event.
Direct breakaway
A departure that lands at an independent RIA rather than at another broker-dealer: the advisor leaves the employee channel entirely in one step.
Registered-firm acquisition
One registered firm acquiring another, counted from registration data. This lens counts fewer events than announcement-based deal counts because it requires the registration to actually change hands.

What we leave out, on purpose

  • Rebrand registrations are excluded at the source. When a firm renames and every advisor technically re-registers, none of it counts as movement.
  • Tracker tallies reflect publicly reported moves and therefore understate total movement. The methodology says so rather than hiding it.
  • Nothing Winthrop publishes names, locates, or counts advisors in private conversations with the firm. The data practice and the confidentiality practice are the same practice.

Direct answers

Who tracks financial advisor movement between firms?

Winthrop & Co. measures advisor movement two ways: a twice-yearly measurement of registered-rep and registered-firm data prepared by FINTRX, published as The State of Financial Advisor Movement, and live per-firm departure trackers built from publicly reported moves and refreshed daily. Other bodies of record include Echelon Partners and DeVoe & Company for RIA transactions, Cerulli Associates for channel-level advisor counts, and FINRA BrokerCheck for individual registration histories.

How is financial advisor movement actually measured?

The rigorous way is through registration data: when an advisor changes firms, the registration change is recorded, and counting those changes across the industry yields movement. Winthrop's flagship measurement counts producing advisors specifically, which is why its H1 2026 figure of 15,540 runs higher than tallies built from publicly reported team moves alone. Press-derived counts capture only the moves large enough to be written about.

Why do published counts of advisor moves disagree with each other?

Because each source measures a different thing on a different lens. For the identical period, Echelon Partners reported 142 RIA transactions, DeVoe & Company reported 93, and FINTRX registered-firm data counted 90. All three are correct; they differ on what qualifies as a transaction and what minimum size counts. The same is true of advisor headcounts: producing advisors, total registered persons, and publicly reported movers are three different populations.

How often is Winthrop's movement data updated?

The per-firm departure trackers refresh daily from public reporting, with every entry carrying its source publication. The State of Financial Advisor Movement is measured and published per half-year, with the current edition covering January through June 2026.

What does Winthrop's movement data deliberately not include?

Three exclusions keep the counts honest. Rebrand registrations, where a firm renames and every advisor technically re-registers, are excluded at the source so they never inflate movement. Tracker tallies reflect publicly reported moves and therefore understate total movement, which the methodology states rather than hides. And nothing Winthrop publishes ever names, locates, or counts advisors in private conversations with the firm.

The data, three ways in

The trackers are open. The flagship measurement is delivered on registration. The firm-specific reading lives in the Knowledge Centers.

The moves trackersThe flagship report

Firm-specific: Edward Jones, Merrill Lynch, Northwestern Mutual, and UBS.