Advisor moves outpace custodian changes by 110 to one

In the past 30 days, 2,413 advisors switched firms while twenty-two custody relationships changed hands, a ratio of roughly 110 to one.

The rest of the month's ledger widens that gap rather than closing it. Advisor moves were the largest of the twelve activity types in the dataset, custodian changes the smallest, and in between sit 760 deal announcements, 577 closed deals, 402 executive changes and 191 team liftouts, each rearranging who owns a business or runs a desk without requiring a client to do very much at all.

The activity concentrates on a short list of firms: UBS appears 103 times in the 30-day window — about once every seven hours — while MissionSquare Wealth Management appears 104, RFG Advisory 92, Kestra Private Wealth Services 88, Modern Wealth Management 87, NewEdge Wealth 87 and Frost Investment Services 68. The records do not separate arrivals from departures, so the fair reading is that these are the firms where advisor employment is currently in motion — in some cases, presumably, in both directions.

The activity describes hiring and quitting at scale: breakaways accounted for 33 of the month's events against 2,413 advisor moves, meaning the overwhelming share of the churn is advisors changing employers rather than leaving the employee channel. Recorded AUM changes numbered 154, one for every sixteen advisor moves, which points the same way: relationships change hands far more often than the assets behind them visibly move.

There is a mechanical explanation for that, though the data cannot confirm it: switching custodians takes client consent, repapering and re-registration; changing employers takes a resignation. If that is the right account, the ratio measures friction as much as preference, and it is the friction that keeps one column of the ledger quiet while the other runs hot.

The ownership layer was busy over the same 30 days — 760 announcements, 577 closings — and the custody layer was not. Firms can change hands, executives can change jobs, and teams can be lifted off one platform and set down on another, all without an account being repapered — a month like this one looks like a market rearranging its people while almost all of its assets stay where they are.

Over the past two weeks PWD counted 124 stories on recruiting against 84 on custody, the industry's attention calibrated to the part of the market it can actually move. On the last 30 days of evidence, an advisor changes firms roughly every eighteen minutes while an account changes custodians roughly every 33 hours.