In an ironic turn of events, National distributors are the biggest beneficiaries of the 15% increase in advisor
satisfaction reported in the 2010 Advisor Brandscape. Last year, wirehouse reps were the least-satisfied group
of advisors across all channels.

Retirement Income Product Innovations Not Resonating with Retirees and Pre-Retirees

The distributor landscape was changed forever in late 2008 and early 2009 with the acquisition and merger activity of industry heavyweights including Merrill/Banc of America, Wells Fargo/Wachovia Securities, and Morgan Stanley/Smith Barney. Indeed, for industry followers, the mergers of traditional banks with Wall Street brokerage and wealth management firms are likely to cause the extinction [...]