Wirehouse

Where does the name come from?

From the private telephone and telegraph wires that once linked these firms' branches to their head offices, so every branch had the same market information as the head office. The wires are gone. The label stayed with the national firms that survived consolidation.

Which firms count?

Each of the four runs its advisors through a broker-dealer, and each can be checked on BrokerCheck.

J.P. Morgan is the firm most often added to the list, because it runs a national employee advisor force through J.P. Morgan Securities. Regional employee brokerages and bank brokerage units are sometimes called wirehouses loosely.

How does a wirehouse differ from other models?

The difference from an independent broker-dealer or an RIA is ownership, supervision and what happens to the accounts when an advisor leaves. At a wirehouse the advisor is an employee, supervision runs from a central home office, and the client accounts are accounts of the firm.

Whether a move falls under the Broker Protocol depends on both firms' membership. On the official list dated October 19, 2026, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo Advisors are members with joinder qualifications, and Morgan Stanley and UBS withdrew in 2017.

Where it shows up in our data

In Continuum's channel data, the Wirehouse channel covers five firm families: Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wells Fargo Advisors and J.P. Morgan, including legacy entities those firms absorbed. Regional brokerages sit in a separate channel. Advisor Channel Flow shows movement into and out of the channel, and Migration Lanes shows the firm-to-firm routes.