Question for the group. 10-15% of home office associates are likely to get severance packages this year. If you are given a package, will you remain a Edward Jones client?
I personally will not pay over 1% AUM on my fee based account for the privilege of getting 1 maybe 2 calls from my advisor every year. I have also seen my fee based accounts under perform against their benchmarks over the years. I also dont think I will pay thousands of dollars to do financial planning with Edward Jones as software like New Retirement and Projection Lab are only $100 per year.
I am also not sure what the timeline is for fixing the lax security standards. Most home office associates have access to sensitive and private client information. I have seen spreadsheets with clients names ,social security numbers, addresses, account balances, etc with zero masking of sensitive information. It is only a matter of time before a serious data breach occurs. The lack of safeguards around client data is the result of 20+ years of prioritizing GP returns instead of investing in technology. I am not comfortable with my personal information out there for thousands of associates to see