How Winthrop & Co. Research builds its data
Two kinds of data appear on these pages. Each page says which one it uses.
Regulatory records
- Counts built from public filings: SEC Form ADV, FINRA BrokerCheck and the SEC's adviser records.
- A move is counted when a person's registration at one firm ends and a registration at another begins.
- These are registrations. A count of advisors who left a firm says nothing about how much client money went with them.
Publicly reported moves
- Team moves first reported by AdvisorHub, InvestmentNews, WealthManagement.com or Barron's, or announced by the firm the team joined.
- Assets are shown as reported, in the source's own terms. Where reports differ, the lower figure is used.
- A reported figure describes what a team managed when it moved. How much has transferred since is not public.
The H1 2026 State of Advisor Movement report used registered-rep data that FINTRX prepared for it, and says so.
Every total is a floor
Public records lag, and not every move is reported, so each total reads "at least".
Windows are fixed
- Each dataset states its window.
- A six-month window runs January 1 to June 30. Nine months and the second half are separate windows.
- Totals from different windows are never added together or subtracted from each other.
How a destination firm is categorized
Firms are placed by how they are built: who employs the advisor, who owns the client relationships, and who holds the equity.
- Employee firm: the advisor is an employee and the firm owns the client relationships.
- Employee partnership: the advisor is an employee, the firm owns the client relationships, and advisors can hold equity in the firm.
- RIA partnership: the advisor is a partner rather than salaried, the practice keeps its own brand and pays its own costs, and the advisor holds equity in the parent firm.
- Independent: the advisor owns the practice, as a contractor or through their own business.
- Multi-model: a firm that runs more than one of these models on a large scale.
Some firms run more than one model, and those are labeled by the model most of their advisors use. Separately, a firm's channel says what kind of business it is: an RIA, a hybrid RIA with its own broker-dealer, an independent broker-dealer, a wirehouse, a regional firm or a bank.
What this data does not show
- It does not show why any advisor moved.
- It does not show how much client money transferred.
- It does not show moves that were never reported or are not yet filed.
- It does not recommend any firm.
Corrections
If a figure is wrong, we will correct it and list the change on the corrections page. Email us at info@winthropco.com.
Version history of this method
- October 2026: first published.
How to cite
Winthrop & Co. Research, "Dataset," updated Mon D, YYYY, winthropco.com/path.
Source: Winthrop & Co. analysis of internal data, public regulatory records, and publicly reported moves.