Commonwealth Financial Network has received the J.D. Powers and Associates 2010 Independent Financial Advisor Satisfaction Award for having perfect scores across five different categories.
The categories the broker-dealers were judge by included overall satisfaction, job duties, products financial advisors offer clients, products and offerings to financial advisors, people, technology, compensation, firm performance and contact. Commonwealth Financial Network is an independent broker-dealer with offices in Waltham, Mass., and San Diego, has $50 billion in assets under management.
Commonwealth's top ranking was part of J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study. The study measures the satisfaction of both employee advisors, those who are employed by their investment services firm, and independent advisors, those who are affiliated with a broker-dealer but operate independently.
Cambridge Investment Research Advisors and Raymond James Financial Services also rated very high in all categories.
"Fundamentally, the firms that maximize the amount of time advisors spend with clients and minimize the time they spend on administrative tasks benefit from high levels of advisor satisfaction, which translates into high retention and retained assets under management and production," says David Lo, J.D. Powers director of investment services. "In the full service investing industry, client loyalty is often more closely aligned to the financial advisor rather than the firm."