- Net advisor flow
- The number of advisors who joined a firm in this window minus the number who left it. A positive figure means the firm gained more advisors than it lost; a negative figure means it lost more than it gained. This counts advisors, not assets or revenue.
Example: 285 arrived and 137 left gives a net flow of +148.
- Net flow rank
- This firm's position on net advisor flow compared with every other ranked firm, where #1 is the biggest net gain and the highest number is the biggest net loss. It measures direction of movement, not firm size, quality, or prestige. A very large, well-regarded firm can rank low simply because more advisors left than joined during this window.
Example: a firm ranked #143 of 155 had one of the more negative net-flow figures this window. That is a statement about recent movement only.
- Tenure at exit (and the retention rank bar)
- Among advisors who left a firm in this window, the median number of months they had been there before leaving. It is not a measure of how long all advisors stay; it only describes the people who departed. A low number means departures tended to be recent hires; a high number means departures tended to be long-tenured.
Example: 36 months means half of the firm's departing advisors had been there under three years, half longer.
The small bar beneath the number is the retention rank: it places this firm against peer firms with enough departures to compare. The marker sits further right when departing advisors stayed longer than peers, further left when they left sooner. It shows the firm's position, not the reader's.
- Early exits (under 12 months)
- The share of a firm's departures that happened within a year of the advisor joining. A higher share suggests recent hires are not sticking, which often points to an alignment or onboarding problem rather than seasoned advisors reassessing. Compared against the dataset-wide average.
- Where leavers land / Where arrivals come from
- The firms most frequently chosen by advisors leaving (destinations) and the firms advisors most frequently came from (sources) in this window. A path that repeats many times is a recurring route, not a one-off move.
- Small sample
- A flag on the tenure and early-exit figures when a firm had between 5 and 19 departures this window. The numbers are still that firm's real medians, but with so few departures a single move can move them noticeably, so they are shown in muted text, worded as approximate, and labeled with the exact count. Treat them as a hint, not a firm conclusion. Below 5 departures the figures are withheld entirely, and the retention rank is shown only for firms with 20 or more departures, where the comparison is stable.
- Team departure share
- The share of a firm's departures that landed inside a burst window - a 30-day stretch in which most of a lane's moves occurred, the signature of a coordinated team move. Losing a team is a different event than losing individuals one at a time. Shown for firms with 20 or more departures in the window.
- This window / dataset
- The set of advisor moves currently shown. The current view is all advisor moves reported in the last 12 months. Going forward this becomes a rolling trailing-12-month period, so the figures always reflect the most recent 12 months of activity.
- Directional
- These figures describe broad patterns of advisor movement, not audited counts. Firm names and categories come from reported registration changes and can include reclassifications or internal channel shifts. Use the numbers to spot trends and questions worth exploring, not as a precise scorecard.
