LPL Financial shares are getting hammered in Friday trading after the company announced disappointing financial results yesterday.

Shares were trading down 38 percent to under $16 midday on huge trading volume.

The stock is off 64 percent year-to-date.

LPL earned $.28 a share (GAAP) in the fourth quarter ended December, off 50 percent from a year ago.

Adjusted earnings were $0.37 per share for the quarter, missing consensus estimates of $0.51.

For the full year, LPL earned $1.77 per share (GAAP), down one percent from 2014.

Commission revenue, LPL’s biggest revenue line, was down 12 percent to $463 million in the latest quarter, and off seven percent for the year. Net revenues fell eight percent to $1.02 billion in the quarter, and two percent for the full 12 months.

“Sales commissions declined mostly due to an industry-wide slowdown in alternative investments,” the company said.

LPL executives warned that the tough environment would likely continue, with volatile markets driving customers to cash and the Department of Labor’s pending fiduciary rule impacting sales of alternatives and other commissionable products.

“We expect continued pressure on brokerage sales,” CEO Mark Casady said in a statement Thursday.

Recruiting has also stalled. Advisor count at year-end was 14,054, down a net 19 advisors from the third quarter. LPL gained just 18 advisors in all of 2015, compared with 363 in 2014 and 321 advisors in 2013.

“We’re getting a flushing out of lower-end producers,” Casady said on an analyst call Thursday. “We’re in very good shape in terms of movement of assets into LPL,” he said. “We see a good pipeline [of recruits], probably better than we’ve seen in a couple of years.”

Total assets were $476 billion at year-end, up three percent from the third quarter and flat compared to a year ago.

LPL executives also addressed questions about the quality of the company’s reporting. The firm has started reporting GAAP results along with adjusted earnings, officials said Thursday, and next week will begin to report monthly metrics.

In addition to a challenging operating and regulatory environment, the company has been under pressure from activist investor Marcato Capital Management LP, which last fall took a six percent stake in LPL.