1999 Articles
- The Wall Street Journal. “Deals & Deal Makers: Securities Firms Go on Hiring Spree for Brokers.” Randall Smith. November 24, 1999. Online stock trading poses a threat to the livelihood of full-service stockbrokers. So what are some big securities firms doing? Hiring even more brokers.
View full article… - The Wall Street Journal. “Ultimate Trade School? Trainees, Seeing Promising Jobs, Try Broker Boot Camps.” Rebecca Buckman. September 9, 1999.In an age when investors can buy and sell shares online for $10 a pop with the click of a computer mouse, who would want to begin a career as a stockbroker?
View full article… - Research. “Survival of the Fittest.” Ellen Uzelac. September 1999. Industry experts look for firms to continue to chip away at cash compensation while showcasing deferred compensation in the form of stock options, deferred payouts and wealth accumulation incentives. By some estimates, the value of deferred compensation in broker pay packages is expected to hit 20% in the next decade; it amounts to 10% today. And while the commission will never completely lose its luster, more and more compensation plans are being built around asset management. “Ultimately, the firms are going to redesign broker pay plans around asset gathering,” according to Rick Peterson, a Houston recruiter. “The firms are doing a lot in their own way to discourage commissions. The managed money is going to get the better deal.” Article not available.
- The Wall Street Journal. “Wall Street Still Spends Big to Court Top Stockbrokers.” Randall Smith. July 14, 1999. Wall Street can be a funny place. At a time when low-cost online stock trading is threatening to make full-service stockbrokers obsolete, who is the Street throwing money at?
View full article… - Registered Representative. Cover Story - “Book Sale.” Tracy Herman. July 1999. Rick Peterson, a recruiter based in Houston, says another alternative involves wirehouse brokers who take early retirement and then go to independent firms. “It’s a triple score,” he says. “They take early retirement and are free to negotiate with a second firm for an upfront bonus, and then sell the book to a second broker.”
View full article… - InvestmentNews. “Style is as Plain as the Name: They Have a Jones for Broker Growth.” Jeff Nash. June 21, 1999. Jones plans to more than double its offices to 10,000 over the next four years –making it one of the country’s largest sales forces — without using acquisitions to fuel the bulk-up. … It’s so ambitious a strategy it may prove undoable. With 4,570 offices (more than six times as many as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.) Jones already has saturated many of its wealthy rural and suburban markets. Recruits could soon be feeding on veteran brokers’ territory. … “You can only cut up a small town so many ways,'’ observes Rick Peterson, a recruiter in Houston. “Initially the growth may be good for the firm, but it’s bad for the brokers.'’ Article not available.
- Registered Representative. Compensation - “Compensation - Ups and Downs.” Pamela Savage Forbat. February 1999. Rick Peterson, a Houston recruiter, says firms are “trying everything” in their recruiting bonuses: stock, cash plus stock, straight cash and salaries. More brokers are crafting their own incentive packages, then looking for a firm that will accept them, he says. “Brokers are becoming like free agents.”
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